Tuesday 9th June - The moral compass

The world and its problems dissolve around us how do we react?  When I am in doubt my mind turns to Con my first father-in-law long gone but he had a gentle presence.  What would he have done? Paul had the same quiet wisdom and I loved him dearly for that.  Was it righteousness, not sure, but it was a combination of choosing between right and wrong and then speaking out.

Con ordering two American couples out of the house in Blonay.  There they were sipping their whiskey and laughing about the bombing strikes on Vietnam, and he just stood up and asked them to leave the house, I had never met anyone put words into action - they went quietly enough, utterly astonished ;) friendships lost but respect gained.

Now we live through a whole load of moral and ethical questions, not only in our own lives but on the broader stage, we argue politics from a left and right bias.  The only optimistic note is that we learn from each other.

Treatment of our fellow human beings is being called into question, as well it should. The small act of throwing a statue into the harbour at Bristol is not really important, though Pritti Patel says it is a shocking illegal act - so be it.  We have black politicians, black newscasters and journalists, also doctors and lawyers - they are there out in the community, so some have made it through the 'glass ceiling'.  But others haven't, they live in the poorer districts, commit crime, just as others in the community, but discussion on black people is loaded against them with statistical evidence that clever dick sociology professors earn their living by

.

My son's best friend is black, they have been friends since university, Ephraim would argue the toss on any subject, occasionally we called him racist - yes it can come from the other side as well!  My son never sees different races, his friends through life have been people from different backgrounds, that is how it should be, Con would have approved.

There is a certain naivety in my writing, I can never condemn easily, but the Black Movement I see at the moment brings hope, I trust it will go somewhere. As Banksy puts it......

“People of colour are being failed by the system. The white system. Like a broken pipe flooding the apartment of the people living downstairs. The faulty system is making their life a misery, but it’s not their job to fix it. They can’t, no one will let them in the apartment upstairs."  We have to open the door. 

Bristol is a lively place, for many years I have watched the hot-air balloons rise from the city and then come over Bath Race course, a safe place to live.

  Hollow by Vanessa Kisuule

You came down easy in the end.
The righteous wrench of two ropes in a grand plié.

Briefly, you flew, corkscrewed, then met the ground
With the clang of toy guns, loose change, chains, a rain of cheers.

Standing ovation on the platform of your neck.
Punk Ballet. Act 1.
There is more to come.

And who carved you?
They took such care with that stately pose and propped chin.

Wise and virtuous, the plaque assured us.
Victors wish history odourless and static.
But history is a sneaky mistress.

Moves like smoke, Colston,
Like saliva in a hungry mouth.

This is your rightful home,
Here, in the pit of chaos with the rest of us.

Take your twisted glory and feed it to the tadpoles.
Kids will write raps to that syncopated splash.

I think of you lying in the harbour
With the horrors you hosted.
There is no poem more succinct than that.

But still you are permanent.
You who perfected the ratio.
Blood to sugar to money to bricks.

Each bougie building we flaunt haunted by bones.
Children learn and titans sing
Under the stubborn rust of your name.

But the air is gently throbbing with newness.
Can you feel it?

Colston, I can’t get the sound of you from my head.

Countless times I passed that plinth,
Its heavy threat of metal and marble.

But as you landed, a piece of you fell off, broke away,
And inside, nothing but air.

This whole time, you were hollow.