Life at Findhorn

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Tony Walton
20 May 2008 at 00:18

COMMON WEALTH

Four Polemical Poems for a New Golden Age

by The Tigerfish

(1) MANIFEST DESTINATION

Now’s the time, a high time before we’re all left high and dry,

To try the courage of our conviction

In a new civil war: a civilised fight to the death,

To the very last breath of extinction

Of their centralised grip on defeat, complete surrender

To forces beyond our collective will.

Except that our Collectives will stand up and be counted,

Mounted on steeds of Freedom and bold deeds

Of derring-do: a daring message that we will send, a

Trumpet-call of Hope, to heal the ill-will;

A counterblast to the ill wind that blows nobody good.

It’s a message of Harmony, that speeds

The plough, right now, when we need to be booted and mounted

And spurred on by the good word Neighbourhood.

I propose a toast to our Common Wealth.

To the host of nations in the Great Family of Man;

For the ghost of party politics howls

In the adversarial night of its bitter despair:

And it can only lead us all nowhere

And fast; its tenure cannot hold; a savage beast that prowls

Its territorial imperative

In toothless decay; its sway a broken reed; its lifespan

Shot to pieces. Already now in stealth

We gather, high on the hills and under the greenwood tree:

A Common Wealth of mighty Liberty

That is beyond the wealthy people’s tarnished gold-dug dreams;

And in the pebbles of the holy streams

We count our precious blessings of a better way to live.

But not apart: no more fragmentation,

No more solitary pursuits: lonely separation

Is how they’ve kept us under their thumb, ground

Down, struck dumb, under their boot-heels. Now we’ll be wondering

No longer; now we’ll know the Truth of what

We have to do, together in the ring,

Drawn together for Holy Ritual in the Sacred Pound:

Can you not feel the Wonder of it spring,

Rising within your heartsick breast, like long-awaited yeast,

To unleash the beast of Rude Assembly;

To overthrow the last, long shadow of landlord and king,

And hear the trumpets sound, the hillsides ring

With the joyful singing we are bringing

On mighty wings of Song uplifting, gifting beginning

All over again: our pain past at last;

Our true gains bringing an end to all the cant and rot

That has set in, besetting us in sin.

Now we have no further need of their baleful dissembly;

We’ll make each place our Wembley Stadium

Of celebration, an irradiation of parade

In every forest glade, in each glad field of our fruiting.

We will be piping, we shall be fluting,

We can be rooting for each other all the way: a feast

For our Hearts, Souls joined: no more sundering.

An abundance of resonance shining:

All our better instincts for Humanity refining.

The time of our fearfulness will be passed.

Stand fast, and we shall come together now, and we will win.

(2) NEW COVENANT

Let each of us declare a Covenant

Directly with his own holy conscience,

Unmediated by intercession

From officials and representatives.

Let us represent ourselves entirely;

Let us officiate our own office

Of duty and responsibility,

To our own selves and to one another:

Let nothing any longer come between

Each of us and the holy Truth we’ve seen.

Let each of us find that Truth where we may,

In so far as it does not infringe on

The Liberty of everyone to find

It for themselves. Let’s have no more preaching

From high pulpits, where Wisdom is obtained

By the elect, to be channelled through them.

Let each one know the Wisdom that he knows

That lies within his Heart and in all things

All around him, and all around her, too.

With open eyes, let us embrace the view.

Let us have true tolerance for all our

Differences, that contribute so much

When held not in conflict and contention;

Do all things with the best intention,

And harbour nothing in our Hearts

That we dare not mention. Let us bring things

To the shining Light of Understanding.

Let us share what we hold; let Truth be told

Unto one another, in Brotherhood,

In Sisterhood: let us make all things good.

And let us have no more of the teaching

That is no more than given dictation.

Let us have, at last, true education

That draws out from every child the very best

That he and she is capable of. Love

The children, that they may follow our best

Example; and do not seek to test them:

Let them test themselves with all the trials

And the challenges of Life, so that Joy

Is well valued, by every girl and boy.

Let each of us declare a Covenant,

A New Covenant with Beauty, Love and

Truth; this is our one Holy Trinity:

From here, where we are, to infinity;

From each short footstep to the farthest star.

Let us know the True Music that we are;

Let us sing it without fear or favour.

Every moment is the one to savour,

Every thought and hope and wish, ours to hold

Up high and proudly: ours to make us bold.

(3) OUR DEMANDS : A CITIZENS' CHARTER

>>We dream now of a Golden Age

Tony Walton
20 May 2008 at 00:24

(3) OUR DEMANDS : A CITIZENS' CHARTER

FIRST and foremost: an absolute and final end

To this corrupted Monarchy, which is

A broken shadow of its former power, and

Rightly so; its hour has gone, and it has

Long outlived its usefulness. And all the Royal

Palaces not personally owned by

Individual members of the Family

To be given over to Parliament

To house the homeless and the refugees

From political persecution overseas.

SECOND, and issuing from the first directly:

The complete dissolution of all the

Authority of the Crown-in-Parliament.

No more Prime Ministers, indirectly

Elected and absolutist rulers,

For they have either been men (or woman)

Of monstrous ego, all-enveloping hubris

And lunatic self-deception, who have

Led us with brazen fanfares down the highway to

Moral bankruptcy; or feeble men who

Dither and prevaricate our route on

The same road, to the same conclusion, a little

More slowly. Away with them now, once and for all!

THIRD, therefore: a new constitutional fiat

For our head of state, ceremonial

Only in the role, powerless to anything

But the task of representing us all:

Our Man or Woman of the People, who will

Hold office, directly elected, for

One year only, with no subsequent returning;

An office open to the good and the great

In whatever sphere they may have gained deserving

Reputation - which excludes politicians.

FOURTH, in further consequence: an end at last to

Party politics, to marshalled gangs whose

Only real motivation is the pursuit

And retention of power, for its own sake.

Break this stranglehold now on the choking body

Politic: free every man and woman

Chosen to represent us (on their own merits,

According to our agenda) to speak

As their conscience dictates, without fear or favour.

Let us savour true Freedom, genuine

Democracy, and fully participative

Governance of our own affairs. Let debate,

Contentious in argument and consensual

In resolution, hold the floor, the more

To return a proper sense of pride and justice

To the proceedings. Let every voice

Be heard undeterred: truly and fairly;

For we have, in all Truth, so far barely

Scratched the surface of the well-touted principle

Of government for the People by the People.

FIFTH, and finally for now (though the finer print

Will need careful refinement), let power

Be thoroughly devolved, in every manner

Possible and practicable and just,

Throughout the Common Wealth of this Nation of Ours.

Let powers be held by small elected

Committees of wise and able elders in each

And every local community

Throughout the land. Scotland, Wales and Ireland can join

Or not, as it may please them, in equal

Confederation, to determine a common

Strength of purpose and capacity in

Our foreign affairs. But above all, let each man,

Woman, and child, in preparation, be

Fully involved in the politics of this land;

For it affects them each and every one,

And their voices should be heard. Is it not absurd

That this has not yet been the case, till now.

Let us all assume full responsibility

In our duty to engage, as free citizens;

Free to determine, in sickness and health,

Our part and our share in our Common Wealth.

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HEAR THESE POEMS READ ON THE STREET IN HAY-ON-WYE ON FRIDAY 30TH MAY ~ INCLUDING:

(4) THE EXTRAVAGANT PROMISE OF MACARIA

for which the available space will not allow inclusion

here. Greetings from TONY WALTON

Written on Shakespeare’s & St George’s Day, 23rd April 2008

Take a walk with Gabriel Plattes, a treatise writer

Whose first concern was the feeding of all mankind:

A walk through the fabulous streets of Atlantean

Utopia (after Bacon, after More) - where the

Arrangement of political process, according

Free voice in all matters of due redress, delivers

Fundamental social reform; where authority

Is held to scrutiny and judgement of its failings;

Where new opinions are thoroughly debated; and

The ruling council lays the cornerstone of the world’s

Happiness. Happy they who live in Macaria;

Where a college of experience takes charge of

The introduction of new medicines, rewarding

Those who produce them from the public purse. And all this

Keeps the promise of political peace, in plenty

And prosperity for all its citizens. No kings,

No lords, no captains and generals of industry,

No profiteering speculators, no selfish

Shareholding: all men and women have their stake, here in

Macaria. A polity in fruitful discourse

And co-operation with the nations of Europe,

And the wisdom of Comenius, an Erasmus

Of his day, who says the way to wisdom and a good

Society is education: the pursuit

Of understanding; a vision, like Francis Bacon’s,

Of unified human knowledge, on the firm basis

Of experience, tested by the fire of reason.

A hundred years before the Enlightenment’s dawning,

This was the first new morning of the thirst of mankind

For a new kind of life, a better way of living:

A passage back through the gates of Eden, to the Truth

We held before the Fall; when Adam was blessed indeed

With perfect, intimate and respectful knowledge of

Nature and his place therein, which God’s intervention

And expulsion of us from that perfect state divorced

Us from ~ as the gates clanged shut behind us and a world

Of hates and bitter fates awaited, unabated

Ever since that hateful day: when God’s superstition

Gripped our Hearts and mortal terror shrivelled up our Souls;

And we were no longer who we had been, wholly holy

In our communion, with ourselves, with each other,

With all of everything. Sing : sing out the extravagant

Promise of Macaria, a true and lovely aria

To bring it, bring it, bring that Prime Time back again.

________________________________________________________________________

With thanks to Michael Braddick : ‘God’s Fury, England’s Fire’ (2008) pp. 156-8

‘A description of the famous kingdome [sic] of Macaria’ - ”almost certainly written

by Gabriel Plattes“ says Braddick - was published anonymously in London in 1641.

The title of this poem is a phrase of Michael Braddick’s.



filip
23 May 2008 at 18:25

Say,... I can't rread the article as the left column cuts off many of the words. Can this -please be fixed?