Where do you stand?

It's the old tug of war,
left vs right
us vs them
Except someone's found a tractor
and set the field on fire

Where do you stand?

They're busy yelling out the rules-
of up is down
and down is up
of watch thy neighbour burn
I've never been good at following rules

Where do you stand?

I've never been very good at standing, either
but now the heat's on
are you worried we'll make it-
left, right or in the middle?
Authoritarian or liberal?

Where do you stand?
And who stands with you?

A.J. Ponder


To find out, why don't you take the Political Compass Test https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
For many it is an eye-opener, it's easy to believe you're more moderate than you are, that a party is left leaning, when it is really right leaning, or a party is libertarian because they are against taxation.

Now while you might not agree with everything in it, it does seem to work, and is a ready frame-work to compare countries, parties and even movement over time. For NZ, US, AU, UK, DE, and more.

Have a great week people, let's hope we can all pull together and put out the flames. :)

The Tug of war competition at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris - Denmark/Sweden v France

From http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/multimedia/gallery/index_uk.asp

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.

Discovering Science with tomato power! :)

Apologies for the lack of a poem this week, we're going into an election at the moment in NZ and it's seriously tense, will we have Green policies, or not? Will we have fiscally sensible policies, that come from a deep understanding of how poverty and homelessness are expensive? Or giveaways just to look good, but not actually fix the problem?

Who knows. But what I do know is our kids are amazing, and their future is worth fighting for. Also this is just a cute little review of my book The Frankie Files.

Now all I need are some of Einstein's wonderful quotes about creativity and the imagination.
We need that creativity and imagination more than ever so we can look at the world and imagine what might be. :)

A.J. Ponder

The Frankie Files is available wide and on Amazon (aff link) and on ko-fi as an ebook only.

 

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi    

And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024

 

 

Goldilock's Jewel

This was originally called Blue-Green World, but as that currently has political connotations, I decided to change the name to Goldilock's Jewel.

Goldilock's Jewel

There's a blue-green pearl
dancing through
the darkest night
lit by
distant stars, and
whirling in the
tight embrace of the sun.

Its lustre
a blanket
barely 300 miles thick
stands between us
the dark of night
and the tight embrace
of the sun.

A.J. Ponder

Worth celebrating the world today, because why not. How can we look after it, if we can't appreciate it?

Whose World is it, Anyway?

We're adrift
in a tv show
with Drew Carey's evil twins
pronouncing
the facts don't matter

Only we're not talking about
who gets the credits -
or the last word.

It's not like we can escape
the gas that's seeping,
or the oil you're sweeping
under the stage

Not to mention the
loose wires,
the smouldering fires
and the sprinklers set to Climate Change.

Come on, guys,
it's too late for improv
and some nob
spouting metaphysical
"what's real, anyway"
bullshit.

This is a crisis.
We're dying down here.
Overheated,
poisoned
and drowned in
endless
obfuscating
babble.

You can't make these things up
and not even Josie or Sandi
can balance the obvious bias.
We need the audience
in this game,
pointing out
the facts.
This theatre,
this game
was never about the points,
it was about having the time of our lives.

A.J. Ponder

A piece inspired by a right wing "libertarian" who insisted that facts don't matter so much that I couldn't help but think of Drew's famous line on Whose Line is it Anyway, "Where everything's made up and the points don't matter."

Who knows what we're meant to do with these people who fly into endorphin releasing righteous indignation any time the lies they base their lives on are threatened - Seriously, what are we meant to do with people whose opinion can't be swayed by facts, and who've ensured that, by simply refusing to believe that facts are a thing?

I almost put "where the spin's made up" but that spin is
terrifyingly real so...

BTW the clip opposite has been captioned many times, you'll find most of them by searching the slogan. Where everything's made up and the points don't matter. so here's another one, because the meme is so screamingly obvious, the U.S/America line had already been taken.
#posttruth

Have a great week,
And never take a good fact for granted ;)

A.J. Ponder

Today by Thomas Carlyle

So here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Out of Eternity
This new Day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night, will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.    

I found this poem by looking to see if William Allingham had written another poem I liked, besides The Faeries. Then I thought maybe he had some friends or influences, and that that'd be interesting in itself. I found Thomas Carlyle, and while it wasn't the forresty poem I was looking for, I liked him and his work immediately -- it doesn't hurt that he coined the term "the dismal science" for economics.

So there you have the poem of the day - let's hope you enjoyed it, and that your day has a blue sky, and slips away meaningfully. :)

A.J.

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi   And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024

                 

Miss Lionheart is getting the message out

Found footage of Miss Lionheart in Mr Big's underground bunker - We need to know if she's going to be alright...

To keep up with any new events, you can go to Lilly's website at misslillylionheart.wordpress.com and pick up your copy of Miss Lionheart...don't miss out, it's more than your life is worth!  

PS we hope she can make it to the book launch on Thursday...

A.J. 

Miss Lionheart is also available wide, from Amazon (aff link), and as an ebook in my ko-fi store

 

 

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi   I'd love to know which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024 

 

 

Holes

There's a hole in my mind
where the world seeps in.
A filtered unknown
infiltrating a closed
system.

There's a hole in my brain
where the facts drift through.
And in the heavens can you say
what allowed them to fall
so far?

There's a whole lot of bull
to make a brain more spongy
than spongiform encephalitis.
The neurons having lost their shape
have struck out -
gone their separate ways to retire
far away from
the simmering sea
of questions:

where?
what?
why?

For there are no anwers
unless you go digging

and find the holiest of holes -

where you'll find emptiness
stuffed with 
lies, damned lies
and money.

A dissolution of non-particulate matters
not particularly mattering
as the tide rolls in and over
a dead sea.

A.J. Ponder

Another week, another poem, I hope you enjoyed it. I quite like this one.  Despite the fact that's it's an awful lot of words for the old saying, "follow the money"

Have a great week, and hopefully I'll have some exciting news next Tuesday. (Nothing to do with cats, I just wanted to add a cat picture, because why not?)


A.J.