Bittersweet Ballads

Children playing amidst the rubble of damaged buildings in a camp for Palestinian refugees

By Martin Cohen

Palestine Wail and Other Bittersweet Ballads is a collection of poems by Yahia Lababidi. Yahia, as he recalls, has a personal connection to the conflict in Palestine, because his grandmother, Rabiha Dajani, was, seventy-five years ago, forced to flee her ancestral home in Palestine at gunpoint. She went on to become a remarkable educator, activist and social worker.

The collection starts with an apt quotation. Mahmoud Darwish’s aphorism that:

 

«Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance.»

These are poems like ‘We Were Playing with the Clouds’ by the Palestinian artist and activist, Ghassan Kanafani (1936 – 1972), which runs:

I wish children didn’t die.

I wish they would be temporarily elevated

to the skies until the war ends.

Then they would return home safe,

And when their parents would ask them,

where were you? They would say,

we were playing in the clouds.

Yahia himself writes, by way of an introduction to the collection:

‘The death of one child, due to natural causes, is nearly unbearable. The systematic, cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocent children, in the name of so-called ‘self-defense’, is an unjustifiable moral obscenity. Yet, this is what the Israeli government continues to do and it is appalling that there remain democratic nations as well as civilized individuals who find it difficult to unequivocally condemn such depravity and call for a ceasefire. Who will honor these blameless, anonymous martyrs? How can we remain silent in the face of such atrocities?’

‘Words matter, since narratives shape realities and, in turn, how history is told and who is deemed worthy of our sympathies. That’s why artists are deemed dangerous, for daring to speak truth to power. It is, especially, significant for example that since October 7th, more than 70 Palestinian journalists have been killed, in Gaza, in the line of duty while Israel has murdered at least thirteen Palestinian poets and writers in Gaza.’

‘Our understanding of the human condition is diminished without the emotionally imaginative and spiritually-enriching witness of storytellers and artists. We know from watching the news that narratives are grossly distorted when high-jacked by corrupt politicians and compromised media. As a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, Malcom X, succinctly put it: “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’

As a case in point, just over a month ago, young Palestinian poet, scholar and activist, Dr Refaat Alareer, was assassinated by a targeted Israeli airstrike, along with his brother, sister and her four children. Anticipating his own death, Alareer shared this heart-rending poem, just one month prior to his murder by Israeli forces:

If I must die

 

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself–

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.

But this is a collection of new poetry by Yahia Lababidi so let us include now this one – by way of a taster. The reader is sincerely encouraged to seek out the rest in the collection.

The Light-keepers

Hope is a lighthouse

(or, at least, a lamppost) 

someone must keep vigil

to illumine this possibility

In the dark, a poet will climb 

narrow, unsteady stairs

to gaze past crashing waves 

and sing to us new horizons

Others, less far-sighted, might 

be deceived by the encroaching night

mistake the black for lasting, but 

not those entrusted with trimming wicks

Their tasks are more pressing —

winding clockworks, replenishing oil –

there is no time for despair

when tending to the Light.

Commenting on the collection, James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Creativity, and Self-Compassion, writes: 

‘These are necessary and truthful poems. Yahia Lababidi powerfully illuminates this heartbreaking time and terrible season in the history of our world. This book, like a lantern in darkness, brings to light the truth of lives we must learn to honor and remember.’

---

And do check out Yahia’s YouTube channel where he regularly includes readings of his poems.

https://www.youtube.com/@Yahia.Lababidi

What's in a name?

By Shoidur Rahman

French Martinique: no marionette martinet then, or nightingale. Thus begins this tail, as all tails do, quietly and decently, but rising to prenominal elaboration. The jackdaw may crakkajack alone, but listens to the earth call of toucan.

Now the toucan’s brow is so heavily, crossly drawn, a look of ineffable concentration is there like beetlebrow. But it's also endearingly light and playful as well. Wait, my bird, ‘til I get to the bottom of this tail. Wait, ‘til I end my song.

His crumpled orange beak is sharp, not yet for this world – nor so flash that he could start to work it like a hip-hop hopeful, complicity, asininely imitatio - but as a scimitar he might use it as a dagger, instead. - Fan that tail! But only just so – modestly! 

Don't grauble or grumble or grovel in the dirt, like a turkey. Be glossy, a high shine, be as polishedly black as any upperclass British person of high decorum wearing bowler hat and clipped moustache and suit. Be as black as the polished wood veneer of the effigies of a certain yesteryear, a toucan squat be on my windowsill bookshelf. 

But if in your boots you see reflected your own face, have a care you don't remember poor Indian shoe shine boys, who wore the big turbans, who daily pushed the brush, shovelling hay and other shit stuff, but never grovelled, earned only a rupee a day, or exchanged it so that their brother could eat. Only let it be, so that it live.

He’s quite fine, toucan, complete within these sheaves of leaf and shade, his tropical retreat. The black men come and go, toiling in the blazing sun. But his eye is gimleted, and he’s quick to scuttle, two at a time, on clawed feet, breathing respiration in a big billowing sky, which descends to our planet like the calmest bluest sheet you've ever seen…

POETRY: Oh, AI!

The ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan to in conversation with the contemporary novelist Mo Yan, Courtesy AI.

By Chengde Chen

Oh, AI, are you the Southern Gate between the known and unknown

Or the Monkey King of humanoid capabilities, unparalleled and bold?

You, on my behalf, think, write, design, and program,

Responding effortlessly, seeking widely, and chatting with ease.

Your literary prowess is like galloping from Qu Yuan* to Mo Yan**,

Your profound knowledge spans from Thales’ to Musk’s domain.

Your ‘deep learning’ leaves me trailing in the dust,

While your ‘algorithmic’ space unifies man and God!



I know you’re a machine, yet I envy your intelligence,

You're clearly my invention, yet exposing my incompetence.

I should celebrate your arrival, yet fear self-destruction,

I want to reject you, yet dread delaying the theory of evolution.

Ah, please tell me, how should I truly treat you?

Is it really your insidious duty to replace us?

I wish I could transform into your ‘artificial intelligence’,

Let you taste the mixed flavours humans experience facing AI!

---

*Qu Yuan (300 BC) is regarded as the greatest poet in early Chinese history—the first author of verse in China to have his name associated with his work.

**Mo Yan is a Chinese novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012.

 

A Poem comparing Confucius and Marx (with a twist)

By Chengde Chen

I just asked ChatGPT, one of the new artificial intelligence to write a poem about Confucius and Marx. You can see what I got below:

Confucius and Marx 

In ancient halls where wisdom's flame did burn,
Two minds emerged, in different times they'd yearn.
Confucius, sage of old, with noble grace,
His thoughts engraved in time, a lasting trace.

In golden words, he spoke of virtue's way,
Harmony and order, like the break of day.
His Analects, a guide for hearts and minds,
A path to walk, where virtue intertwines.

Marx, a modern thinker, bold and keen,
In times of change, a revolutionary dream.
He saw the struggle, class against class,
A call for justice, echoing like glass.

Confucius sought the moral man's design,
Harmony in life, like a vintage wine.
Marx, the critic, saw the chains of fate,
Called for a revolution, a new state.

Two voices echo through the corridors,
Philosophers distinct, like distant shores.
Confucius with tradition, hand in hand,
Marx, the visionary, reshaping the land.

In ancient scrolls and communist tomes,
Their words live on, in intellectual homes.
Confucius and Marx, an unlikely pair,
Yet their ideas dance in the cosmic air.

I really think we poets, and writers generally, are close to be being made redundant by it, and I feel lucky to get my novel published before it came! . A philosopher friend (Donald Gillis) recently talked to me about this question: how should we define AI knowledge – and what is the difference between a computer gaining from ‘deep learning’ from numerous documents – and humble humans learning from experience? 

(Oh, and the image for the poem was also created by artificial intelligence!)

Poetry:

Mountaintop to Mountaintop

Aphorists in Dialogue

Yahia Lababidi and Fraser Logan

---

Yahia Lababidi: We live and unlearn. 

Fraser Logan: Few learn the difference between critical thinking and criticising without thinking. 

YL: When the student is not ready, imposters appear.

Torment is a prerequisite of intellectual growth, not something to stifle in students. 

Let humiliation be your teacher. 

Mockery exposes falsehoods, but truth is already naked. 

Desert: the spiritual sensuality of the world, denuded. 

Alone, the heart denudes itself of pleasantries and splatters forth vulgarities. 

Style is the garment we shed on our way to nakedness. 

Stylised nakedness puts the art in cathartic. 

Art for art’s sake is a dead end; art for heart’s sake is the way out. 

Art today defies old masters and defiles the world with new disasters. 

Good artists are heralds of the world to come. 

A few artists hear the echo of an ancient starting gun; but we deem them rigid and unfree. 

Being hostage to beauty: the strength and weakness of artists. 

The best artists love morals as much as they hate them. 

We inhabit a moral universe—amorality is immorality.

Truthfulness is moral, but there are immoral truths. 

The best and most dangerous lies are mixed with truth. It’s truth that attracts others and allows them to accept untruths. 

Speak the truth, or speak to soothe. 

We are granted different powers to help one another. 

Socialite virtues are troglodyte vices. 

Some human sins, such as jealousy and pride, are Divine virtues. 

We sinned against the earth—by inventing sin. 

Strange, how what is life-giving―if not handled with care―can become life-threatening.

Those who contradict life, invariably suffer from life—until they are contradicted by death. 

Those with apparent contradictions are better equipped to understand Life’s inherent paradoxes. 

Fear of contradiction ties the tongue. 

If you cannot do good, practice biting your tongue. 

There are nowadays no individual palates, only tastebuds on a common tongue. 

Silence is a powerful punctuation mark. 

The talkative hiker spoils the view. 

The straight path is available to all who forsake crookedness. 

Beware the will which never wandered. 

We are unfree when we stray from Divine Will. 

True freedom oscillates between anarchy and constraint, tires of oscillating, tires of being tired… 

The path less trodden is harder on the feet, but better for the soul. 

When we advance on our enemies, we often use their paths and lose our friends along the way. 

To despair, hate or seek revenge is to be seduced by evil. 

Honesty marries hatred in the prison cell of love. 

When we love our prison, we no longer see the bars. 

Man is carried in the wind, like a leaf; but the wind is also carried in man. 

One day, leaf. One day, branch. One day, root. 

Youth climbs up single branches, hoping to be seen at the top of the tree. Adolescence longs for the all-encompassing view, but ends with a snap. 

Doubt, as a season of the soul, is like a strong wind that prunes trees — loosening dead leaves and weak branches — to fortify our foundation against future storms of the spirit. 

Maturity stands back to contemplate the tree, judging that every branch can bear fruit. Wisdom seeks out new seeds, advising youth to do the same. 

Wisdom is recovered innocence. 

The sight of youth upsets the old, but overjoys the elderly. 

Much of the suffering in our world is the result of wounded children, parenting. 

Man can suffer from pleasure or take pleasure in suffering. 

Spiritually understood, everything can be used for our development and advantage. 

The eradication of pain would be insufferable; the maximisation of pleasure miserable. 

The punishment for avoiding suffering is superficiality; the reward for embracing it is spirituality. 

Even stars have blackspots. 

We inhabit ourselves more fully when we find our inner light switches in the dark... 

Honesty is strike paper, and we are pyrophobic match-heads. 

Metaphors, like all possible explosives, should be handled with care and by those who know what they’re doing. 

Honesty erupts at the election booth; scholars hide away in yellowing ivory towers. 

Imagine if presidential candidates were required to be well-versed in moral philosophy. 

Politics is a zero-sum game in which dishonest politicians represent an alethophobic electorate. 

Nations fail for the same reason that people fall: they lose their balance. 

Most political arguments stem, not from curiosity, but from the impression that lopsided people need to be righted—or lefted. 

Birds use their wings, not only to fly, but also for balance―just like us. 

There is virtue in being a vole, if one is a vole; but life amongst soil and shrubbery is a cage to those with wings. 

Anything freed from the marble is an angel. Never cease chiselling... 

Greatness is sculpted. 

Better to be good than great. 

Only those who fall from great heights ever make a sound; but we are flattening the earth. 

If you ask to be raised in spiritual station, expect trials to match such an elevation. 

Hardship accelerates maturity. 

In imperilled states, the soul defends itself with poetry. 

The best writings begin with misery and find merriment along the way. 

Poetry is what happens to prose at boiling point. 

Aphorisms are muses brought to climax. 

Aphorisms are the sushi of literature. 

Aphorisms should be chewed on and swallowed—or spat out. 

---

Yahia Lababidi, an Egyptian-Palestinian author of ten books, has been called "our greatest living aphorist". He has contributed to news, literary and cultural institutions throughout the USA, Europe and the Middle East, such as: Oxford University, Pearson, PBS NewsHour, NPR, and HBO.

Lababidi’s latest work includes: Revolutions of the Heart (Wipf and Stock, 2020), a book of essays and conversations exploring crises and transformation, Learning to Pray (Kelsay Books, 2021) a collection of his spiritual aphorisms and poems as well as Desert Songs (Rowayat, 2022) a bilingual, photographic account of his mystical experiences in the deserts of Egypt.

*

Fraser Logan is an M4C-funded PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Warwick, UK. His project examines Nietzsche's views of honesty. Fraser’s aphorisms have been commended by the Oscar Wilde Society, and he has written a book, titled Eruptions, of 600 original aphorisms.

Poetry: The Non-linear Mathematics of History

Posted by Chengde Chen *

Things are so obvious, why can’t we see them?
We are still obsessed with developing technology
as if we wished to hasten our extinction
This is because history is deceptive
We have no understanding of the mathematics of history
hence are immersed in a linear perception of ‘progress’:
history has proved that man controls technology
so technology must do more good than harm
This has been our experience of thousands of years
thus our unshakable faith and confidence

We, of course, need to rely on history
which seems to be the only thing we have
Yet, history is not a piece of repeatable music
but more of non-linear mathematics
Some histories may be mirrors of futures
while some futures have no reflection of history at all
It is hard to establish such a non-linear understanding
as it’s so different from our intuition
Thanks to the difficulty, as a famous tale relates
Dahir, an Indian wise-man of 3000 years ago
almost made the King bankrupt his Kingdom!

One day, the chess-loving King challenged Dahir
by asking him to play the final phase of a losing battle
As it seemed impossible for anyone to turn the table
the King promised Dahir smugly:
‘If you can win, I’ll meet you a request of any kind!’
Dahir, with his superior intelligence, did win
but he only made a very small request:
‘I would like to have some grain
placed on the chessboard in the following way:
one for the first square
two for the second square
four for the third square
and so on and so forth
so that each square is twice that of the previous one
until all sixty four squares of the chessboard are placed’

What an insignificant request, the King thought
and approved it immediately
He ordered his soldiers to bring in a sack of grain
and to place them in the way requested
When one sack was finished, another was served
Then another, and another…
until they exhausted all the grain in the Kingdom
it was still far from completing the 64 squares
The grains required are such astronomical quantity that
even the amount of grain in today’s world
does not come near it (over 1000 billion tonnes)!
It was the modest figures of the early counting
as well as the linear intuition about ‘history’
that made the King miscalculate the matter completely
He is still in debt to Dahir to this day!

Technological progress is the kind of exponential curve
but it is even more deceptive
It had crawled very slowly for very long in ancient times
but rose quicker and quicker in recent centuries
People, however, have considered the change linearly
assuming the rate of growth the same as the past
Hence a common-sense conviction:
we have always progressed through technology
so through it we can always progress into the future
technology has always become more and more advanced
so with it we can always be more and more powerful

Oh, the linear thinking of progress!
History is not optics
nor is the future a mirror image of the past
In the past man was a small member of the club of nature
while today, we have changed the weather, raised oceans
and created new species, as well as new forms of energy
If we cannot see such a world of difference
we are as miscalculating as the old King was!

We cannot, however, afford to miscalculate
as we would have no time even to be surprised
The surface value of history is its usefulness
The deeper value of history is to prove itself useless
The history in which we controlled technology
was only history, no matter how brilliant it was
The future may mean a ruthless breaking away from it!

---

Editor's note. The amount required is 2 raised to the power of 64 minus one. Wikipedia offers that the total number of grains is eighteen quintillion, four hundred and forty-six quadrillion seven hundred and forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred and nine million five hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and fifteen (18,446,744,073,709,551,615) and that this is “about 2,000 times annual world production”. 

 

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. He can be contacted on chengde.chen@hotmail.com

POETRY: A Greater Question (concerning the new coronavirus)

Posted by Chengde Chen * and Yingfang Zhang

Part II 

“Genetic engineering technology is designed to enable genes to cross species 
barriers.” – Martin Khor, New diseases as viruses break species barriers… 



The people in the Doomsday horror are speculating:
Is the virus destroying mankind man-made?
If so, by whom?
Some suspect China, while others, America

But a greater question is if science can do it
If it can, won’t the disaster happen sooner or later?
Hiroshima/Nagasaki was a continuation of atomic physics
Chernobyl was what nuclear technology had entailed

When scientists said they didn’t do it this time
It meant they had been able to
So, whether it was man-made this time, or by whom,
Has been a relatively–secondary question!

If it has been possible, then it is inevitable –
A fatal car-crash for the driver is a matter of time
If we still can’t see science is such a car for mankind
What does it matter if it happens this time or the next?

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde.chen@hotmail.com

Poetry: Critique of Genetic Engineering

Posted by Chengde Chen *

“Genetic engineering technology is designed to enable genes to cross species 
barriers.” – Martin Khor, New diseases as viruses break species barriers 


Genetic engineering has a million benefits,

While I have only one reason against it.

But, any number multiplying a zero becomes a zero.

Science is supposed to support human existence;

If genes are written by all historical conditions of nature,

Isn’t quoting them out of context man outlawing himself?
 


The temperature on the Earth’s surface is within ±50ºC

A very small range in the grand thermometer of the universe,

But just the home for us – the creature of 37ºC – to survive.

Believers marvel at God’s arrangement, yet it’s only nature.

All existing species are adapters to this condition;

Those not, either never had a chance, or have been eliminated.

 

Should God, seized by a whim, play at “planet engineering”

Rearranging the order of the solar system, what would happen?

If Earth moved one step inwards to the position of Venus,

The mighty 480ºC would evaporate us into clouds.

If Earth moved one step outwards to the position of Mars,

The minus 140ºC would cast us into super-ice.



Earth is in our genes.

Genes are nature’s vertical memory and horizontal logic.

The process of adapting and eliminating carves all specifications.

The billions of codes are billions of doors and locks without keys,

Shutting out foreign viruses with DNA incompatibility

So we don’t catch cats’ flu, nor do dogs get our hepatitis.
 


Yet, manufactured genes come suddenly

Sharing no responsibility of history but short-circuiting species.

When transgenic pig organs are implanted into humans, 

Pig viruses also leap over millions of years to join us.

To gain medical benefits by dismantling the species barriers, 

It’s self-disarming to the bone or tying oneself up to WMD?
 


The biological world is a self-contained all-dimensional computer;

Messing up one sequence could throw the whole system into chaos,

Which is asking God to restart His creation all over!

So He’d rather we mess about with the planets than modify genes.

“If you must,” He may say, “modify Mine first to have a GM god 

To recreate the world, I’d need enhanced energy and perseverance.” 


---

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde.chen@hotmail.com

Poetry: The Mathematical State of Love

 

Posted by Chengde Chen *

Some say love is mathematically positive
Like the state of ‘having’
Because only those who have can give
Man can love because he has feelings
God can love because He has power

Some say love is mathematically negative
Like the state of ‘owing’
The deeper one loves, the more one owes
Hence parents’ willing and uncomplaining
And lovers’ risking death for one another

In fact, the mathematical state of love is zero
When you are not giving, it doesn’t exist
When you are giving, it doesn’t decrease
Whether by multiplication or by division
It turns what is not into itself

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde.chen@hotmail.com

Poetry: The Thought-Reader Revolution

Posted by Chengde Chen *

The Way to Root out Evil?
Thought reading: curing human nature with instinct

Why have the thousands of years of moral efforts,
– Religion, education, and the rule of law –
Not cured the human evil of harming others for gain?
Because faith, reason and justice, powerful as they are,
Cannot outdo the ultimate selfishness of human nature.
Kant said, ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity,
No straight thing was ever made.’

But, what is more fundamental is human instinct –
The self-preservation based only on physiology.
As thoughts are invisible, one can deceive –
One’s evil intentions may not do harm to oneself,
Hence permitted by instinct, hence possible for evil.

If, by a ‘thought-reader’, thoughts become visible,
Any intention to harm others would harm oneself,
Hence prevented by instinct, hence impossible for evil.

Whether thoughts are visible is, in fact, a moral valve,
Controlling whether there is the possibility of evil.
The invisibility of thought = the possibility of evil;
The visibility of thought = the impossibility of evil.
To make thoughts visible makes morality an instinct,
And men “good men” who can’t be bad.

As the invisibility of thought is the cause of evil,
The truly effective way to root-out evil
Is not the moral classics from Plato to Marx,
But seeing thoughts, to cure human nature with instinct.
Instinct is water, to serve or flood depending on the river.
Only in the canal of truthfulness dredged by the machine,
Can the boat of coexistence sail freely with human dynamics.

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of the philosophical poems collection: Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde.chen@hotmail.com

Detours to Atlantic Avenue

Posted by Cliff Fyman

In which the night-time driver of a Manhattan cab transforms overheard conversations with his passengers into a collection of poems ...

When she first spotted my cab I had been starting to park on a snowy side street
          at 2 a.m. to buy a cup of coffee
and she surprised me opening the door
and said I could still buy that coffee
she’d wait but I said that’s okay
and we mapped a course to Gowanus
then skimmed across a conversation of the world’s religions
and how her parents down south wanted her to remain a Baptist but she wanted
          to explore Buddhism
as the snow fell and how a bad thing sometimes is a detour that helps us escape
          something worse
till we find our way
which was just like this detour
she said through the side streets till we came into the clear at Atlantic Avenue.

Poetry: On Name-dropping

Posted by Chengde Chen *

On Name-dropping

Don’t keep dropping those great names
Showing off is self-abasing
Being tall may look remarkable, but
Not by lengthening your shadow in the setting sun

If you happen to be associated with a great name
You only 'happen to be' associated with it
Beethoven’s siblings didn’t necessarily compose
Nor must Einstein’s descendants understand physics

To drink liquor you can’t rely on others’ capacity
To sign a cheque you have to use your own name
The more borrowed jewellery you wear
The more should you feel like a beggar!

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde@sipgroup.com

Poetry: A Nation in Mourning?

Posted by Chengde Chen *

‘Britain, don’t you want another Diana?’

In Mourning for Future Dianas

Written some years back, but strangely prescient ...

Britain has not only become ugly

Since losing its beauty
But has also become crazy,
Kindling its love for the Princess
To burn the media that created her!
The sword of privacy law legislation
Is being sharpened with the mourning ...
If it does kill the birds of intrusion
Who else will be victimised by the slaying?

Wasn’t it those countless stories and pictures,
Digested with English breakfasts and dinners,
That constructed a ‘Queen’ in people’s hearts
– A ‘close friend’ felt by many many strangers
Who decorated Kensington Palace
With millions of flowers?
Oh, the millions of flowers ...
Are they criminal evidence against the media
Or public awards for its unprecedented success?

Enjoying the honey but condemning the bee
Adoring the river but detesting the rain
This nation is also ‘three times over the limit’
On this side of the Channel
Killing future Dianas to mourn the lost one!

Britain, don’t you want another Diana?
A great mourning may be timeless
But the tears for mourning the past
Won’t dry into logic for mourning the future!

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde@sipgroup.com

Poetry: A Notice Offering Amnesty

Posted by Chengde Chen*

A Notice Offering Amnesty

Written after the Grenfell Tower fire

By Chengde Chen

To determine the numbers of dead,

The police appeal to the survivors:

‘Please let us know your situation

And that of others you may know of.
Don’t worry about your immigration status–

We will not report it to the Home Office,

Nor will the Home Office pursue it.
So, please contact us!’

I seem to be touched by this,

But don’t really know what for.
For humanity in the law?
Or because we’re guilty of so lacking in it,

That we have to sacrifice the law

To compensate?

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde@sipgroup.com

Poetry: On Thinking

Posted by Chengde Chen*

It is said that man is the animal that thinks
I don’t know whether animals think or not
but the crowd often doesn’t

From the unifying roar of the Third Reich saluting the Führer
to the wave of the ‘red ocean’ rolling towards the Red Sun
from rock stars’ pretended madness surging into real madness
to Manchester United’s football directing the eyes of the world
the crowd is so simple and so easy to manipulate
Whether it is past or present, east or west
whether it is about religion, war, rock stars or football stars
different fanaticisms are not different!

Why don’t people who can think think? Because
trends are greater than thought
traditions are heavier than thought
faiths are stronger than thought
power is more powerful than thought
A madman’s hysteria can become a nation’s reason
a dead dogma can become a social movement, because
a head without thinking can be filled with anything!

What is thinking? Thinking is not memory
nor reciting hundreds of classical poems
Thinking is not longing, nor lingering under the moonlight
Thinking is not calculation, nor differentiation or integration
Thinking is not fantasy, nor a dream in the daylight
Thinking is the deity’s atheistic advancement –
with reason cutting through the magnetic field of concepts
generating the omnipresent electricity of criticism

For a trend, it is a cold reef
For tradition, it is a rude drunkard
For religion, it is a self-appointed God
For power, it is the blind who see nothing
It is the will of water, and the breath of fire
Logic is its iron hooves, galloping through the universe
It may not be difficult to subdue a thinker
but a thought cannot be conquered
much as no force can make one equal two!

To think is not man’s instinct or necessary function
Without Copernicus, the Earth would still rotate
Without Darwin, apes would still have evolved into man
Yet thoughts make the difference between men
greater than that between man and a deity
Kant, who never travelled beyond his Königsberg
invited God into his heart to discuss ‘Practical Reason’
Einstein, being a junior clerk of a patent office
caught up with light to gain eternal life in four dimensional space
Some people have never thought throughout their lives
so life owes them a world
While some who have, have created new worlds!

Today we are proud of our digital capability
But machines carrying out man’s instructions
is man executing machines’ orders
Hence the Matthew Effect:
those who think, think more; those who don’t, even less
The net may have caught everybody
the high-performance screen can be more desolate

It is said that “when man thinks, God laughs”
But if man doesn’t, God would be bored
He likes the fun of thinking but not the hard work
so He created man to do the job for Him
How should the creature deserve the creation?
This oldest of Greek issues about thinking
is still the first thing that needs to be thought

---

* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde@sipgroup.com

Disruptive Finance

  Posted by Martin Cohen 

It seems like every day, President-elect Trump announces some outrageous new strategy, abandons some long-standing tenet of policy, or upsets long-standing conventions. And that’s of course BEFORE becoming President!

You’d maybe have thought, as a businessman, that he’d appreciate the need for research, consultation, and caution,. But if so, you’d not understand the kind of business circles that Donald Trump moves in. He’s not so much a shopkeeper, in the mold of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, whose father was called (albeit misleadingly) a corner-store grocer and whose motto was expenditures must match savings – as a financier in the mold of, well, Jordan Belfort - the wolf of Wall Street.

Trump is part one of a new breed of super-wealthy and totally unscrupulous financiers whose motto is DISRUPTION. I followed the activities of some of them in the UK, such as Edi Truell, founder and CEO of Disruptive Capital Finance, and the path led eventually to the spreading chaos (and high stock market prices) that is Britain leaving the EU. Where Trump’s plans will go is anyone’s guess – and that’s exactly how he likes it. Because in uncertainly – and upheaval – disruptive financiers make millions.

The film is based on the true story of Belfort - who ultimately came a cropper. But there’s no reason to suppose that possibility is worrying Trump or his circle of friends and advisors – like Britain’s Nigel Farage. To Americans, Farage is the man who persuaded Britons to vote to leave the European Union – but to those who know him better, Farage is a commodities trader whose worked in both London and New York. And Farage’s campaign to get Britain to up-end all its economic and political commitments was supported by a range of other figures from high finance.

Take Richard Tice, CEO and a partner at Quidnet Capital. and co-chair of Leave.EU the official campaign for ‘Brexit’.

Tice, of course. still insists that leaving the EU can be pulled off without upending the economy. The former head of CLS Holdings Plc, a major property-investment firm, calls it a "very simple process" in which the EU would negotiate a new accord with a separate Britain in one to two years. "I don’t think there’d be any disruption at all." Fellow Brexit campaigners Crispin Odey, founding partner of Odey Asset Management, and former Tory party treasurer Peter Cruddas, founder of online trading company CMC Markets, all look to a new order in which financier s are freed from regulation. Do you remember the financial crisis of 2007-8 – the one that almost brought the Western world to collapse? Well, they evidently don’t. Instead their manta is about seizing control of the levers of political power in order to increase the ability of speculators to make money.

As Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott has said: “Far from the picture of gloom painted by the Government, it is clear the City of London would not only retain its pre-eminence as the world’s most important financial centre, but would also thrive after freeing herself from the EU’s regulatory shackles.”

In both the UK and the US, an influential cadre of super-rich have clear professional reasons for wanting to change the political norms: a dislike for what they regard as overburdensome – and profit-reducing – regulation.

According to one source close to the industry: “I think there’s a genuine conviction they have that all regulation is rubbish.” But, he says, the profit potential from leaving is also a factor: “They love taking a view ... Market dislocation is fine if you’re a hedge fund guy.”

Trump is not so much a reaction to the Obama presidency – as he is to the flood of regulation that followed the 2008 financial crash. And so, to understand what’s coming next ignore all the angry tweets and photo opportunities and instead recall that classic piece of political advice: follow the money. There may be more logic to Trump and his newly assembled band of bankers and financiers’ desire to shake things up than people give him credit for. But it’s the opposite logic to what he claimed to stand for.

---

And a poem

one drizzled day
donald and nigel
over buttered egos
and hot crumpet
thought to exchange keys

‘you live in my house
& i in yours donald’
said nigel
‘on the contrary
i in mine you inside’
replied donald


From: the booklet: 45th President Elect, by Ken Sequin

---

Poetry: The Name Card

The Name Card

---

 A poem by Chengde Chen 

Attending a conference,
you receive some name cards.
Sorting through them, you care about
not the name, but the title,
which is the weight of the card.

From it, you assess the function,
estimating the time and place
for any possible uses.
If there is no direct application,
indirect values are explored.
For instance, to refer it to a friend –
there may be a potential return
of some kind in future…

To imagine a relationship from a card
is unlike fantasizing sex from pornography,
which is, more or less, poetic.
The most non-poetic essence
of imagination
is to have interests deduced
from symbols!

---

Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry: A Deal Struck Between Poetry and Applause

 A poem by Chengde Chen 

---

A Deal Struck Between Poetry and Applause

(But not just about poetry)

I do not understand the poem the poet has recited.
But it is applauded, so it must be me being stupid.
So I consult others, on my left and right.
Surprisingly, they shake their heads, as well.
I ask them why they had applauded.
They say that it was just being polite.

So I ask the poet, quietly, to explain its meaning.
He tells me, quietly too, what it is about.
The meaning is rather simple, nothing much.
I say, ‘If so, shouldn’t it be made easier to follow?’
He says, ‘I know, mate, but you know,
if it was easy, would it be poetry?’

Gosh, the resonant deal between poetry and applause
is, in fact, a tacit collaboration between two frauds.
First, the poet tricks the audience through obscurity –
making a simple thing a mystery that sounds deep.
Then, the audience fools the poet with pretence –
as if having reached the depth that doesn’t exist.

As obscure poetry generates dishonest applause,
dishonest applause makes poetry more obscure.
I wish I could ask everyone who had applauded
to explain his or her every clap on the spot.
If there had been no such pretence of orgasm,
how long could the act of love-making last?

However, not to make myself an enemy of the world,
I’d better beat this poetic business psychologically first.
That is to regard this hypocritical applause
as a tribute to me for my not applauding –
as an apology for my loneliness,
as salutation to my honesty.

---

Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poetry: A Deal Struck Between Poetry and Applause

 A poem by Chengde Chen 

---

A Deal Struck Between Poetry and Applause

(But not just about poetry)

I do not understand the poem the poet has recited.
But it is applauded, so it must be me being stupid.
So I consult others, on my left and right.
Surprisingly, they shake their heads, as well.
I ask them why they had applauded.
They say that it was just being polite.

So I ask the poet, quietly, to explain its meaning.
He tells me, quietly too, what it is about.
The meaning is rather simple, nothing much.
I say, ‘If so, shouldn’t it be made easier to follow?’
He says, ‘I know, mate, but you know,
if it was easy, would it be poetry?’

Gosh, the resonant deal between poetry and applause
is, in fact, a tacit collaboration between two frauds.
First, the poet tricks the audience through obscurity –
making a simple thing a mystery that sounds deep.
Then, the audience fools the poet with pretence –
as if having reached the depth that doesn’t exist.

As obscure poetry generates dishonest applause,
dishonest applause makes poetry more obscure.
I wish I could ask everyone who had applauded
to explain his or her every clap on the spot.
If there had been no such pretence of orgasm,
how long could the act of love-making last?

However, not to make myself an enemy of the world,
I’d better beat this poetic business psychologically first.
That is to regard this hypocritical applause
as a tribute to me for my not applauding –
as an apology for my loneliness,
as salutation to my honesty.

---

Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Poem: “Then … Forget It!”

The Democracy Complex of the Arab Spring 
 
Posted by Chengde Chen*

Love Letters by Jiang Zhi

Democracy is to follow the will of the majority,
but the will is divided into the ideal and reality.
When you poll the Arabs about the Arab Spring,
the result develops organically, from a Yes to a No.

If you ask, “Do you want to get rid of dictatorship?”
the majority will say yes, like seeds wanting to sprout.
If you ask further, “What if it has to be through war?”
the majority will say, “Then … forget it.”

Compared to the devastation of bombing and ruin,
a life without a ballot box is nevertheless a life.
War turns the majority into refugees rather than heroes;
fleeing from it is voting with their feet for peace – any peace.

Democracy is a beautiful but cowardly dream.
Please get it right what the real democratic wish is.
Man is an animal for whom bread weighs more than ideals,
so he’d rather have sex-without-love than love-without-sex.


* Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today, Open Gate Press, London. chengde@sipgroup.com