In Blogistan

In Blogistan
The one-balled Mouse
Is King.

In Blogistan
All is there,
But
All is not
Always
All it seems.

In Blogistan
A burly front-row forward
With a beer-belly
And six-pack,
Can call himself
Slinky ClubGirl.

And In Blogistan
Little Miss PubeWax
Can call herself
Bushy the Lumberjack.

You don't see
The little mouses;
You don't see
Their little ballsies;
You don't hear
The pitter-pat
Of tiny clicks.

All you see
Is the busy little
Chick-chick,
Chat-chat,
Text-text,
Screen froth
Of unaccountable,
Subliminal
Screen names
Being groomed,
Invisibly,
For equivocal perception.

Blogistan is a land
Of chimeras
And shifting focus;
Shimmering smoke
And mirrors;
A mirage of identities
Evaporating like
The morning mist
And then re-forming
At night,
As heavy and globular
As the dew.

There is mysticism
In the Blogosphere;
A tinkle of
Elf-magic
Around the screensaver.

Consider the mystical texts
Of Old Blogistan:
"The First Thought in Three Fonts";
"The Imitation of Mice";
"The Mouse of Unknowing".

These codices
Give clues
About the whereabouts
Of esoteric hyperlinks,
But you need
To be there
To hear;
You need
To be there
To see;
You need
To be there
To know
In Blogistan.

The keypad
As interdimensional portal;
An Einstein-Rosen bridge
Of connectivity
Between adjacent realities.

The flickering screen
Toggling text to text
Thought to thought
Subtext to subtext
Signifier to signifier
Savoured slowly
And seen
Face to face
As in a glass lightly.

Blogistan,
In other words,
Is very like
The real world,
But more honest
And reliable.

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Bloggers - an army of irregulars
Paul Reynolds, the BBC World Affairs correspondent,
discusses the power of blogs.


Technology feeds grassroots media
Dan Gillmor argues that the media are becoming democratised,
and a global conversation is emerging.


Weblog spirituality

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Slinky ClubGirl goes out on the town

Office separation

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand!

One of the nice things
About Mr Honeywell,
The visiting preacher
At Guildford Cathedral, Surrey,
Was his refreshing
Concision.

His sermons never lasted
Too long.

Today was no exception.

"Perhaps it is the case,"
He said,
"That we will only experience,
Fully,
The freedom
Of the Kingdom of God,
When we are strong enough
To respect
The pastness of the past
And repent
Of all religion
And scripture."

"The Kingdom of God,
Exists only in the now,
In the present moment.
That is what the old rumour,
'The Kingdom of God is at hand,'
Means."

"Religion and scripture
Are tribal artefacts
Embedded in the past.
The spiritual task is to move on
And leave these distractions behind
In the closed stacks
Of yesterday's museum."

"Hear, Hear!"
Shouted the Dean and Chapter.

"Bullshit!"
Shouted the congregation.

And Mr Honeywell
Sat down.


Men make such hopeless priests

Why is church so serious?

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Slippery questions

In a letter in today's edition of The Sunday Telegraph (London), Mr Giles Wardle of Tonge, Leicestershire, asks the following two questions:

"If the universe was designed by an intelligent being, who created the intelligent being? If the intelligent being didn't require a creator, why does the universe require one?"

These are intelligent questions.


What is the answer?

Ontological real deal

The unwisdom of belief

Gender confusion

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Dangerous tree in Warwickshire

A fruitarian bird-watcher,
Named Mr Schpoch,
Was setting out his picnic
On the grassy river bank
At Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire.

In a nearby tree,
A large bird of prey
About seventy centimetres long
With talons,
Black and brown wings,
White plumage
On the head, neck and tail,
And an aquiline,
Kleptoparasitic eye,
Watched.

Foolishly,
Mr Schpoch
Placed a large peach
On the grass.

The bird of prey swooped,
Picked up the peach
In its talons
And flew back to the tree.

It was a willow tree,
But it could easily
Have been mistaken
For a walnut tree,
If one was
A Japanese tourist
With no knowledge
Of English tree species.

Mr Schpoch picked up
His binoculars
And studied the bird of prey
As it consumed his peach
In the walnut tree.

He checked
The salient details
Of the bird
In an ornithological
Reference book
Which he carried
In his cool box.

The bird was
An African Fish Eagle,
Haliaeetus vocifer,
Not common on river banks
In England,
And mainly piscivorous
In habit
When scientifically observed.

Mr Schpoch
Was troubled
By the eccentricity
Of this avian phenomenon:
Such a bird
Should not be in Warwickshire
And it should not take peaches.

Very carefully
Mr Schpoch
Took out a second peach,
Attached it by a silver chain
To his falconry finger,
Placed the peach
In a prominent position
On the grass,
And waited.

What happened next,
According to the local coroner
At Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire,
Was the stuff of nightmares.


High fells

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

I am a terrorist

I am a terrorist
Catch me if you can
In under the radar
A quiet Osama fan.

I am a terrorist
On social benefit
The money's very useful
It buys explosive kit.

I am a terrorist
Look out on the bus
I've got a rucksack on my back
But you won't make a fuss.

I am a terrorist
God is on my side
White racial profiling
Can't stop my suicide.

I am a terrorist
Scripture says destroy
Body bombs are my Koran
I'm a British Asian boy.


.................................................


Religion is a terrorist behaviour

Under the radar

The game continued

Sufi Master with disciples

Pope terror talks

More Norfolk koans

Jolly frightening, this terror business

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

The Ten or Eleven Commandments

Page update: 01.08.07

One of the more dogged human textual artefacts to persist in the religious culture of the West, and one most prized by fundamentalists, is the biblical text referred to in common parlance as "The Ten Commandments".

But what are the Ten Commandments, actually?"

The modern mind suggests three possible answers to this question. The first two suggestions might be described as arising from a liberal Christian perspective, and the third from a New Age Christian view.

(1) The Ten Commandments are an out-of-date, elite-led compilation of control values designed to assist tribal cohesion in an ancient culture.

(2) The Ten Commandments are a human religious code designed to give covert power to a self-appointed priest-caste responsible for inventing and enforcing them.

(3) The Ten Commandments, as originally given, were not commandments or laws or rules at all; they were concise expressions of social wisdom. They articulated levels of information, apposite to the human level of consciousness at that time, which it would have been wise to follow in order to get out of the mess which third-dimensional human spiritual culture had got itself into after Atlantis.

On this view, the original tablets, in the biblical Ten Commandments story in Exodus, were of extra-terrestrial origin (from benign, highly-evolved, alien guides acting within the Order of Melchizedek).

The original number of commandments on the "magic" tablets given to "Moses" on "Sinai" was eleven, not ten, and the commandment which was not allowed to persist in the Hebrew record was: "Thou shalt trust the human heart to be the divine representative of the soul."

This commandment was edited out for political reasons, partly because during Moses' absence up the mountain, a coordinated and highly sophisticated negative influence, emanating from the fourth and fifth dimensions (the astral and mental planes), had made ground among the Aaronic golden calf faction in the Israelite base camp.

This negative influence was opposed to the benign alien guides ("The Holy Spirit") and was the core motivator behind the Third Reich towards the end of the Armageddon conflict (1914-1945).


...........................................................



Creator creatrix creation creature

How is religion?

What is the function of religion?

Our angels the aliens

Fundamentalists' Fellowship

Preconceived idea

My name is God and these are My instructions

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Under the radar

Sunrise on the 21st June
At Slapton Sands
In Devon, England,
Took place at 4.58 am.

At 4.59 am
A large group
Of German tourists
Emerged from a local hotel,
Spread their beach towels
Out on the beach
Until not a square inch
Of habitable sand
Was left exposed,
Erected flagpoles
At each corner
Of each towel,
Ran red flags up to the top
Of each flagpole,
Each flag bearing
A large black swastika,
Put on lederhosen
Held up by braces,
And started eating
Sauerkraut
And spiced sausage.

Sometime later,
At Baden-Baden,
In Germany,
A large group
Of English tourists,
Wearing out-of-date
Leeds United away strips,
Sauntered late
Into a hotel dining room
And,
With a stiff upper lip,
Ordered fish and chips
And Yorkshire Pudding
For breakfast.

According to
The Metropolitan Police's
State-of-the-art
Racial profiling unit,
Neither the German tourists
Or the English tourists
Had any traceable
Terrorist connection
With Islamic extremist madrassas
In the tribal lands
Of Pakistan.

Both groups had
Entered Europe
Under the radar.


Cheese sandwich

Jolly frightening, this terror business

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Disclaimer in the corporate boxes

Our distinguished guests
In the corporate boxes
Are respectfully reminded
That cricket is a game
Played with a hard ball.

If such a ball
Travelling aerially
At eighty or ninety
Miles an hour
Should accidentally
Make direct contact
With the centre of your forehead
During post-prandial drinks,
You may experience
A temporary
Loss of consciousness.


Cricket on the radio

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Unusual cloud-form over Launceston

Sophie, awaking from
An unusually vivid dream,
While lounging lazily
On a sleepy summer afternoon
In her lavender-scented garden
In Launceston, Cornwall,
Recalled a fragment of conversation.

In her dream
She had been chatting casually
With her regular teacher,
And a few others,
When he had made the comment
That down on Planet Earth,
At this important time in its evolution,
In any one place
And at any one time
On average
There were a minimum
Of eighty benign UFOs
Hovering directly overhead,
Most of which were invisible.

Considering this,
Sophie raised her head
And looked directly up
Into the sky.

Not a single UFO was visible.

However, there were plenty
Of nice fluffy white clouds
Punctuating the blue sky,
One of which,
Quite high up,
Was moving slowly
In the wrong direction.

Sophie decided
To take her glasses off.

And then she saw it.
What, with her glasses on,
Looked like a cloud-form,
Quite high up,
Moving slowly
In the wrong direction,
With her glasses off,
Looked like an enormous UFO.

Sophie calculated
Its altitude to be about
Seven or eight thousand feet
Above the tip of the tower
Of the granite-built
Parish church
of St Mary Magdalene,
Mary Lucifer,
Mary Lightbearer,
Apostle to the Apostles,
Grail of the Gospel.

Sophie looked,
And as she looked
Her vision sharpened,
And she calculated
The dimensions
Of the UFO.

It seemed to be about
Ten miles long,
Four miles wide
And twenty five miles high.

It was shining like the sun;
Starbright in daylight;
A column of fire,
City-like and sparkling,
Larger than London
But reassuringly friendly
In a big, steady sort of way.

Sophie wondered
Where this particular UFO
Had come from,
And why.

Some of the Arcturian starships
Were supposed to look a bit like this
When they manifested
In third dimension atmospheres
Of third dimension planets
Above third dimension
Centres of human population
Such as Launceston.

Arcturus, Sophie recalled,
Was referred to as
The Shepherd of Hermas
By the early founders
Of Christianity
Such as Mary Magdalene.

Then Sophie put
Her glasses back on
And the UFO disappeared,
Leaving only
A rather pleasant-looking cloud-form
Quite high up,
Moving slowly,
In the wrong direction,
Against a rather pleasant-looking
Blue sky,
Which appeared to be
Even higher.

Sophie kept her glasses on
And went back to sleep.

Bees, and others,
Busied themselves
Among the lavender.


.........................


Aquarian elf girl

No such thing

Out beyond the Gas Giants

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Cricket on the radio

At a quarter past two
In the afternoon,
A man with a large nose
Is listening to test match cricket
On the radio.

His wife undresses
And asks him
If he would like to have sex.

The man says
That he will consider her invitation
In two hours time,
During the tea interval.


Marriage in trouble

Women's issues

Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race

Joined-up thinking

Smelling the cat

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Decoy terrorism

It is a matter of public concern that the BBC, a public service broadcaster, has been duped into giving so much attention to the decoy terrorist attacks in London today.

The religious terrorists who, in the name of religious fundamentalism, disrupted the transport network in the British capital this morning, are small fry compared with the political and economic terrorists currently meeting under the cover of the G8 banner at Gleneagles.

It is these eight men, and the covert puppeteers who mind them, who are the real terrorists. One of them, indeed, is the chief poisoner of the planet.

His task at Gleneagles is to defend the industrial status quo in his country which, although accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, consumes 26 percent of the world's energy and belches out 23 percent of the world's energy-related carbon emissions.

This man is also a religious fundamentalist and the major warmonger on Earth, yet the editorial controllers at the BBC appear to ignore the evil he channels and give, instead, blanket coverage to a few relatively insignificant religious firecrackers in London.

Open your eyes, BBC. You are being used.


Lost nation

Obituary

The American Problem

Energy facts from Solar Energy International

Under the radar

I am a terrorist

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Blowing in the wind

A man with a red-and-yellow bowtie
Goes in to see his doctor
In Harrow, Middlesex.

"Good morning, Doctor,
"How are you?"

"I am very well, thank you,
I have got five briefcases
And three umbrellas."

"Jolly good."

"What can I do for you,
Mr Millipede?"

"I'm worried about my left leg, Doctor,
It seems to be hanging off."

"Yes, legs do that.
Legs are designed to hang off.
They hang off the pelvic girdle
Attached only by muscles,
Tendons and ligaments.
If legs didn't hang off like that,
Mobility would be inconvenient."

"I understand, Doctor,
But this particular leg of mine
Has been hanging off alarmingly
Recently.
I don't want to make a fuss,
But I would describe the hanging off
Of the leg
As pathological."

"Oh dear.
We'd better have a look, then."

"As you can see, Doctor,
I have taken off my trousers
And underpants
To assist you in your endeavours."

"Yes, I noticed that
When you walked into the room.
How long has your left leg
Been hanging off like this?"

"For as long as I can remember, Doctor.
Fifty-five or sixty years at least.
It blows about in the wind."

"Your left leg blows about in the wind?"

"Yes."

"I see.
Mr Millipede, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course, Doctor."

"Does your left leg blow about in the wind
All the time?
Or does your left leg blow about in the wind,
Episodically?"

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

"I mean, Mr Millipede,
Are there times when your left leg
Blows about in the wind
Which are then followed by other times
When your left leg
Does not blow about in the wind?"

"Yes."

"Are you aware
Of any particular circumstances
Which seem positively to correlate
With the episodes
Of your left leg blowing about
In the wind?"

"Yes."

"What are those circumstances?"

"Doctor, when I take my trousers
And underpants off
And climb out
On to the window ledge
Of my seventeenth floor office at work,
And lower myself over the window ledge
So that I am dangling from it
By my fingertips only,
And it is a windy day,
My left leg
Blows about most disconcertingly."

"Yours is a rare
And interesting condition,
Mr Millipede.
I must consult my textbooks."


Poodle parlour in Purley

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Lose weight feel great

Lose weight,
Feel great,
Join our hypnotherapy
Slimming group.

Turn your fat slagginess
Into slim slagginess.

Tighten-up
Those love handles.

Lick those ladles
Of lard
Off your wobbles.

Amaze your boss
With your new
Sinuous,
Sexy,
Slenderness.

Gasp at the ease
With which you slip
Into your daughter's clothes.

Look in the mirror
And know
Which way round you are.

Stop being a roly-poly
Adipose pudding,
Plump dumpling,
You revolting
Fat
Hippowoman.

Lose weight,
Feel great,
Join our hypnotherapy
Slimming group.


.........................


Eating disorder

Casualty

Demanding lover

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Men make such hopeless priests

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/06/men-make-such-hopeless-priests.html
Alcuin Bramerton profile ..... Index of blog contents ..... Home


Feminist theology is about more
Than the use of vibrators
In liturgical dance.

Feminist theology is about
The sexist silliness of saying
That God is a cosmic senior citizen
With hair on his chin
But not on his pussy.

Feminist theology's goals
Are to interrogate
The social construction
Of black womanhood
In relation to the African American experience
And ask if "womanist theology"
Might be a more gender-neutral term
Than "feminist theology" -
And more ladylike?

And feminist theology is about
The employment discrimination
Involved in asserting
That 3.5 billion clitorises
Disqualify the human beings
Attached to them
From being priests of Christ
And from the fringe benefits
Which being priests of Christ brings
In terms of pretty dresses
And pensions.

Apparently,
If you are the proud possessor
Of a penis,
You can pray better.

Feminist theology
Questions this dogma.

And feminist theology
Questions other things,
Such as why is it the case
In many churches
That there is so little
Handbag space
Provided on the High Altar?
And why is it is the case
That most medieval
Easter sepulchres
Are not fitted with bidets?

These are live issues
For the female faithful
And they cannot be swept under
The kitchen sink.

It is not easy
To deliver a sermon in church
While you are doing the ironing.

It is true that you could
Get a man in
To do the ironing.

But that would mean
That the man would miss the sermon,
Or do the ironing
Down at the pub.

Or, more likely,
Mow the lawn instead
While laughing loudly
At football jokes
And peeing on the lavatory seat.

Men make such hopeless priests.


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Men's issues

Female bishops

Why is church so serious?

Descent

More Norfolk koans

Is God an idealist?

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Editorials

Page update: 28.02.08

Every now and again, the Senior Editorial Board of the Alcuin and Flutterby Weblog asks Mr Alcuin Bramerton to write a measured editorial on a matter of compelling transdimensional significance.

On each occasion, Mr Bramerton refuses.

Seven examples of his refusals are reproduced, in full, below.


Obituary of Hank Texasburger III

Decoy terrorism

The Queen's Birthday Honours

Sympathetic help for unacceptably fat women

World of Bears

Maybe try Romanism?

The good modern husband

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Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

The Queen's Birthday Honours

We wish to express regret at the omission, once more, from the Queen's Birthday Honours List of Mr Michael Jackson, the American child-care expert and philanthropist.

We feel that those advising Her Majesty may have overlooked Mr Jackson's persuasive qualifications to be considered for a Knighthood.

Mr Jackson capably combines the patronising whiteness of Sir Bob Geldof with a nose every bit as interesting as that of Sir Jonathan Sacks.

He has every right do be disappointed with his unwarranted exclusion from royal recognition.


Royal visit

World of Bears

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Ontological real deal

He was thinking.
He was thinking about
Theology.

He was thinking
That if it is true
That there is nothing outside God,
Which is pretty obvious
If God is really God -
Mr Big Big Huge,
The Ontological Real Deal,
Cosmic Mind,
Sugar Daddy in the empyrean
Creator of Creators,
Ground of our Being,
Sustainer of our Becoming,
Mr Maximal Mystery
Metamanager of All That Is –
If there is nothing outside God,
Then that means
That Coca Cola
Is not outside God.

Which offers some hope
For America.

Theology must be positive:
It should posit benevolent outcomes.

And if it is true
That God's will is Evolution,
Then that might mean
That America could change
Gradually,
Over time,
And rejoin the civilised world.



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Cause and causation

Creator creatrix creation creature

Radical space for free-thinkers

Preconceived idea

The Ten or Eleven Commandments

Estuary Hermeneutics

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

The American Problem

Page update: 16.09.07


Rightly or wrongly, a view is emerging in liberal circles in Old Europe that the United States of America has become a spiritual drag-anchor on planetary development.

It is being argued that the USA is a manifest conduit of international evil. By "evil" here, is meant that which is anti-evolutionary, sectarian, fundamentalist and self-serving.

The twin towers of American materialism and militarism reach heavenwards, but without the support of sustainable roots in international soil. Not surprisingly, these towers attract unfriendly missiles from afar.

America is a new nation, a young nation, not yet culturally, diplomatically or politically mature. The United States of America is less than 250 years old, yet, by an accident of history and immense good fortune, she has become enormously wealthy and powerful.

But America does not currently have the quality of political leadership to use its favoured position responsibly and for the greater good of the planet. She does not yet have the resources of spirit, or the intelligence, at government level, to resist manipulation by covert materialistic and security interests.

America's pre-pubescent tendency towards selfishness and international bullying is becoming a retarding friction on world growth. Her isolationist stuckness has made her a target for terrorism and international contempt.

For many Europeans in leadership positions in politics, the arts, education, business and spirituality, to associate with the dominant American neo-conservative class feels like associating with mooncalves and lepers.

In the United Kingdom, the recent ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who was said by elements within the European press to actively maintain a commodious second home deep within George Bush's anal sphincter, encountered considerable difficulties over his American sympathies. It is argued that his uncritical support of the Republicans' military adventure in Iraq cost the British Labour Party fifty or sixty parliamentary seats in the May 2005 General Election. For two years thereafter he was a lame-duck leader in search of an exit-strategy. And it became politically impossible for him to accept, while still in office, the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to him four years ago for his steadfast support of America after 9/11.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this situation is that America has one of the most educated and spiritually literate populations in the West. There are many spiritual teachers of world importance active in America at the moment. Yet, somehow, a nation which includes tens of millions of the most generous, benevolent and evolved human beings on Earth, has contrived to allow its public life to be taken over by a political cadre of fundamentalist militarians.

In Europe, it is a matter of some puzzlement as to just how an apparently developed democracy such as the USA can possibly tolerate, at the heart of its polity, a dim vulgarian culture of the Bush-Cheney kind.

Aspects of the liberal European perspective on The American Problem have been articulated elsewhere in this blog, for example:

Obituary of Hank Texasburger III

Lost nation

The game continued

Not immediately apparent

Headhunted

You can pretend

Free money

Elvis in Bedfordshire

Ontological real deal

Decoy terrorism

Fundamentalism is a closed room

Religion is a terrorist behaviour

The unwisdom of belief

Keep poverty permanent

Interview for a new USA president

American Dream

God Bless America

Morgellons mystery

Jesus recounts a dream he had about George Bush

Jesus anticipates an American economic collapse

And among comments on The American Problem elsewhere on the web, the following, perhaps, are worthy of notice:

From Vernon Coleman

From Michel Chossudovsky

From George Galloway

From Josie Appleton

From Benjamin Creme

From Nexus magazine

From the G8 National Academies of Science - pdf download - global response to climate change document (two A4 pages)

From Cindy Sheehan

From Michael Moore - Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11



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A modest proposal: shoot all Washington correspondents
A comment on the American media by Scott Isebrand and Stephen Colbert

This war is brought to you by ....
Article by Pepe Escobar - Asia Times (Alexandria, Egypt) - 20.03.03

UK told USA won't shut Guantanamo
BBC News (London) - 11.05.06

Blair's gold medal dilemma has two very different faces
Article by Tom Baldwin - The Times (London) - 25.05.06

The lame-duck double act take their final bow
Article by Tom Baldwin - The Times (London) - 27.05.06

US is the biggest global peace threat
People in European and Muslim countries see US policy in Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear programme, a survey has shown. 17,000 people in 15 countries, including the USA, were questioned by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. BBC (London, UK) - 14.06.06.

The King of Fairyland
Bush's view of the Middle East rests on pure fantasy - article by George Monbiot in the Guardian newspaper (London, UK) - 01.08.06

Americans have lost their country

An article by Paul Craig Roberts - 01.03.07

..............



NESARA
A new National Economic, Security and Reformation Act for the USA


The symbology of the Illuminati?
A video introduction. Do they exist? Are they just American?



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American Republicans head for the polls
An image of patriotism



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The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

The man behind him in the fish shop

He turned round
And addressed
The man behind him
In the fish shop.

"Your address is
Number 33,
Main Street,
Lower Witchington,
Worcestershire,"
He said.

"Correct,"
Replied the man,
"Perhaps God is that part of us
We haven't yet met."



............................


Preconceived idea

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Nothing passes

He had absolutely nothing
Inside his head,
So he decided to become
A theologian.

His head was like
An unbroken eggshell
With no egg inside.

So there was plenty of space
For vacuous dogma
To rattle around
The soft echo-chamber
Of his untenanted skull.

His vocal chords, however,
Were well-developed,
So he was a great success
As a theologian.

His vocal chords
Were elastic,
Stentorian,
And lacking
In any species
Of self-doubt.

So he became a priest as well.

If you are a priest
It helps enormously
If you have an empty head
And well-developed vocal chords.

He could articulate
Periphrases without focus
And circumlocutions without content,
Such was the felicity
Of his decibels.

In the end he rose
To become the grand international
Head of his church.

But then a strange thing happened:
His church ceased to exist.
It had no members -
Not even him.

And no-one noticed its passing.

If you are standing
By the side of a busy road
And nothing passes,
You tend not to notice -
Even if the nothing is noisy.


Controlled anal voicing

Heretic unfrocked

More Norfolk koans

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Interdimensional travels

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He enjoyed travelling
Through interdimensional portals,
But he did not like
The lack of control
And haphazard nature
Of trying to travel
Through interdimensional portals
By using hallucinogenic drugs.

So he threw away
His magic basidiomycetes,
Or magic toadstools,
Or magic mushrooms,
Or whatever they were called,
And he threw away
His cannabis
And he threw away
His LSD.

And he started to enjoy travelling
Through interdimensional portals,
By using meditation instead.

And it worked.

With meditation
The interdimensional travelling
Was more controlled
And less haphazard than before,
And it cost less.

And by careful breathing
And focused intention
He found
He could avoid
Bad trips
Completely.

And then,
Somewhat unexpectedly,
Early one morning,
While he was on one
Of his interdimensional journeys,
He learned something that
He had not realised before:
What we on Earth call sleep,
On other planets,
And in other star systems,
Is called meditation.



.......................



I am the Moon

No such thing

A dream is a portal

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Give it a try
It was the fluid energy of meditation which he liked ....

Meditation - the direct encounter
Meditation is a spiritual exercise which aligns the physical brain with the soul

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Obituary

Hank Texasburger III
http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/05/obituary.html

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Part of him
Was paralysed
From the waist down,
And part of him
Was paralysed
From the waist up.

But that did not prevent him
From chairing an important
Senate committee.

And he led a remarkably rich
Internal life.

He could identify the reason why
The military-industrial complex
Needed hamburgers
Financed by the illicit drugs trade
In Israel,
To drop unnecessary bombs
On Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he knew the difference between
Donald Christ and Jesus Duck.

He was a truly great American.


..........................



You can pretend

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Directory of blogs written by insects

Charles sits down 
To compile
A directory of blogs
Written by insects.

This is no simple task.

Charles is a human being
And as far as he knows
He is not on speaking terms
With any insects,
Though one can never,
With absolute exactitude,
Be certain
What may be heard
By the fly on the wall,
Or, indeed, be understood
By that same fly.

On the face of it
There is no manifest reason
To suppose
That the intellection
Of an arthropod
Is necessarily,
And in every case,
Culturally incompatible
With the intellection
Of a vertebrate.

But the language barrier
Does pose a problem
For many,
Including humans.

It is important, however,
To affirm the insect community
And to applaud its contribution
To the blogging world.

It cannot be easy
For an insect to operate
A computer keyboard.

Humans beings
Have four limbs
With which to operate
A computer keyboard
And they choose
To use two of them
For this purpose.

But insects
Have six limbs
Two antennae
And, in many cases,
Four wings.

It must be difficult for them,
Therefore,
To choose which appendage,
Or combination of appendages,
To use
To operate
A computer keyboard.

Just possibly,
An insect might prefer
A mouse.

That they have reached
Their own decision on this
Is a matter for celebration,
Not censure.

In compiling
A directory of blogs
Written by insects,
Charles decides that
It might be worthwhile
To consult
A directory of blogs
Written by humans,
Compiled by insects.

Insects have strong views
About humans,
Which is why they sting so many,
And assist them to catch malaria,
And bite them repeatedly
When they go on camping holidays
To Scotland
In August.

And humans have strong views
About insects,
Which is why they kill so many,
With broad spectrum insecticides,
And swat them with yesterday's
Unread Scottish newspapers,
And pull their legs off one by one
In order to demonstrate
Their moral superiority.


..........................


Contact

Intruders

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Female bishops

Not all female bishops
Have a latex fetish.

Not all female bishops
Putt the shot.

Not all female bishops
Giggle uncontrollably
During the Agnus Dei.

A minority, only, are like this.

The majority of female bishops
Are perfectly respectable women,
With wire-wool gripperknickers
And sensible brogues.

They are not
By nature
Subversive.

Many, indeed, carry
Quite jaunty handbags.

It is important to be clear about this.

Women on a gender-trip
Are not necessarily
Bad people.


Women's issues

Sympathetic help for unacceptably fat women

Elvis in Bedfordshire

Disappointed at Greenbelt

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Private collection

Her private collection
Of early musical instruments
Is now almost complete.

All she needs
Is a Stradivarius crumhorn.

She falls asleep
And has a dream.

In her dream
She sees a Stradivarius crumhorn
Made in Cremona in 1734.

But there is something odd
About the crumhorn.

She looks more closely.
The crumhorn is
Harmonica-shaped.

She is woken up
By a loud knock on the door.

It is a delivery man.

He hands her a package.
She signs for it
And closes the door.

Inside the package
Is a Stradivarius harmonica.

But there is something odd
About the harmonica.

She looks more closely.
The harmonica is
Telephone-shaped.

The telephone-shaped harmonica rings.
She answers.
A voice speaks.
She listens.

The voice says: "The Matrix has you."
"Can I be of any assistance?" she asks.
"We want the source codes
Of the Sion mainframe."

"What's in it for me?" she asks.

"Three green jellybabies
And a Stradivarius crumhorn."

"What shape is the crumhorn?"

"The crumhorn is jellybaby-shaped."

She gives them the source codes
Of the Sion mainframe.
It is clear
That they are telling the truth.


No such thing

Information about lucid dreams

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Heretic unfrocked

The parishioners are careful
Not to gloat.

At long last
They have got rid
Of their parish priest.

He is a heretic.
Ho ho.

English Churchianity,
Through due process of law,
Has finally and officially
Pronounced him to be a heretic.

He doesn't believe
In the virgin birth.
He doesn't believe
In the pneumatic resurrection.
He doesn't believe
In the evil of other religions.

He has been known
To speak to homosexuals.

He doesn't preach the full gospel,
Including the unpasteurised
Wholegrain
Naughty bits.

He is honest
In an unholy way.
He will not give lip-service
To their prepubertal
Salvific superstitions,
Even though they are
Older than him.

And worst of all,
He doesn't believe
In the existence of heresy.
He says: "If there is no such thing
As orthodoxy,
How can there be such a thing
As heresy?"

And his wife
Is known to meditate.
And do yoga.
And take coffee
With persons of neopagan persuasion.

He had to go.
His frock had to be taken off.

He used to frock around the clock
At all hours
And in all weathers
For the benefit of the parishioners,
Many of them old, infirm and frightened.
But now they have told him to frock off.
And he has.

And the parish has returned
To the God-given certainties
Of medieval piety.
The whipping post has been dusted down.

It doesn't matter
That they are now without a priest.
It doesn't matter
That there is now no-one in the parish
Who knows more about prayer than them.
It doesn't matter
That no priest will ever want
To come near their parish again.

What does matter
Is that the baubles of the liberal agenda
Have been decisively rejected.
What does matter
Is that the ancient rule of God
Has been re-established.
It is the priesthood of all believers now.

The Rectory stands empty:
Its windows like the eye sockets
Of yesterday's skull.

The parishioners are careful
Not to gloat.

At long last
They have got rid
Of their parish priest.


................................................


Religion is a terrorist behaviour

General Synod agenda

Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand!

Why is church so serious?

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Unlike the others

She held
Her newly-born baby
In her arms.

It was quite unlike
Her previous three children.

She knew that something
Was 'wrong'
As soon as it emerged.

There was an embarrassed pause
In the delivery room.

And then the local midwife
Who she and her partner
Knew so well
Became theatrically hearty
And positive
In a way which was
Completely out of character.

But they had been made aware,
In advance,
That this baby
Would be different.

She and her partner
Had had the same
Synchronous dream
While they were
Hundreds of miles apart.

He was on a business trip abroad
And she was at home.

But when they compared notes later
They realised that they had
Each had exactly the same dream
At exactly the same time.

And she had the additional advantage
Of being clairvoyant:
She could see energies
Which were invisible
To most other people.

And when she looked
At her new baby
It was immediately evident
That it had a much brighter
And bigger aura;
A much brighter
And bigger bioenergetic field,
Than her previous three children.

The medics at the hospital
Had a strictly confidential standing committee
To deal with this sort of thing.

Unusual babies
With two sets of genitals,
Were a challenge
To modern,
Materialistic medicine.

Tetragametic chimeras
Are difficult to tolerate
In a hygienic world
Of perceived normality.

Something had to be done.

A trained counsellor
Was sent to talk to them.

"We'll cut off
Its spare bits and pieces,
With nice clean scalpels,
Snippy scissors
And accurate forceps,"
They were told.

"We'll make it look like a girl
And you can bring it up like a girl,
And no one need know."

"No, you will not,"
They said,
"We are not having our child
Butchered like meat
For the Sunday joint,
Mutilated by modern medicine,
Just to satisfy
Your surgical superstitions
About what is anatomically appropriate
In your personal opinion.

They took their child away
From the medics
To a place of safety:
Home.

They knew,
From their dreams,
And from their spiritual teachers
On the spiritual planes,
That the human population
Was beginning to evolve
A third sex.

And they knew
That in the next six
Or seven years,
All over the world,
Forty or fifty million
Such babies as theirs
Would be born.

"These are exciting times,"
They thought,
"Exciting times,
Exciting babies.
New children,
New future."

.........................

Motherhood
A picture by Selena Fenech


.........................



Understanding the New Age Children

The Ritalin Conspiracy

Good like that

A mystery deeper than tears

Office separation

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God Bless America

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2005/04/god-bless-america.html
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Thank you, America,
For your leadership.

Thank you for Kosovo.
Thank you for Afghanistan.
Thank you for Iraq.
Thank you for Iran.
Thank you for North Korea.
Thank you for Israel.
Thank you for Syria.

Thank you for your support
Of the United Nations.
Thank you for your support
Of Zionism.
Thank you for your support
Of the military-industrial complex.
Thank you for your support
Of Lebanon
By getting the CIA to murder
Rafiq Hariri.

Thank you for your hamburgers.
Thank you for your soft drinks.
Thank you for logging the rainforests.
Thank you for the holes in the ozone layer.
Thank you for your greenhouse gases.
Thank you for Kyoto.
Thank you for the HAARP antennae in Alaska.
Thank you for AIDS.

Thank you for championing freedom
Without justice.

Thank you for mistaking justice
For expedient legality.

Thank you for your unstable
Banana-republic currency.

Thank you for
Your injurious budget deficit.

Thank you for
Fundamentalism.

Thank you for
Creating Osama bin Laden,
The Saviour of the World.

Thank you for
Creating George Bush,
The Crawford Monkeynut,
And his care-worker,
Coke Dick.

Thank you for
Creating Barack Obama,
The plausible Muslim communist,
And his invisible
Birth certificate.

Thank you for
The death of democracy.

Thank you for
Fucking up
The planet
Since 1989.

One feels, perhaps,
That an opportunity
May have been missed.

God Bless America.


.................



Lost nation

Not immediately apparent

The Ten or Eleven Commandments

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