Which Hat?
Usually when I embark on life’s adventures
I leave the house hatless and optimistic;
Only when it’s shivering cold or raining
Above a parsimonious drizzle do I reach
For a hat sitting patiently by the door.
But which hat is it to be?
There are five pegs and six hats available,
Meaning two or more are always hanging
Together, with at least one hidden from view;
While I could in principle wear one and pack
Another, this seems unnecessarily cautious:
Only a pedant would cover all eventualities!
Let me describe my options when the weather
Is dubious.
The scholar’s hat’s trilby-like, most appealing
When what’s called for is a straightforward
Summary, or – a touch more challenging –
‘Interpretation’ of what is the case and why.
This feels like a safe choice for routine outings
Because it protects the professional ego
Even as it holds wintry showers at bay.
Next comes the headwear of the reformer,
The advocate of evidence-based change
Oriented to making the world a better place,
Safer and more comfortable to inhabit,
Propitious, conducive to accomplishment:
It’s a no-offence hat suitable for any meeting.
The radical’s gear is a baseball cap, complete
With instructions on how it should be worn;
This denotes a certain social awkwardness,
A propensity to get involved, to squabble,
Query and interrogate, not only whether things
Are the way they appear, but if we even
Have our telescopes the right way round!
The hat set aside for the democrat is best
Taken down and donned in moments
Of self-assurance, confidence and good voice,
When a soapbox is to hand and a curious
And respectful crowd in the vicinity;
This is a hat that grabs and holds attention.
The choice of hat for the visionary frequently
Seems obscured by another, and is neglected
More often than not because it takes
A moment to find it; it alone is brightly coloured
With a circular sash commending notice;
It’s like a flower adorned to flatter bees.
Finally there is the cloth cap of the activist,
A no-nonsense if clichéd piece of equipment
Convenient for bonding, sending messages,
Resistant to all locations and weathers, foul
Or fair, and unlikely to be dislodged in a street
Full of citizens of like mind and intent.
A confession: I do not always do as my hat
Of the day suggests; moreover, I sometimes
Get confused, leaving my chosen lid in a bar
Or abandoning it to enjoy the sun.
It is possible, I’ve found, to act spontaneously,
To change headgear, as it were, ‘on the go’,
Or even to ‘pretend’ one has a particular hat on,
As when people say:
‘Wearing my scholar’s hat, I would argue …’.
This flexibility can make the choice of hat
Less tense and anxiety-provoking.
But there remain people and places, like heads
Of university department and editors of journals,
Who require you to wear the right hat on all
Occasions, like boys and girls to-ing and fro-ing
From school.
Do I need a hat today?
Outfoxing External Examiners Who Check Your Exam Papers
They only feel appreciated, valued and effective
If they mess with your queries, so strong and compelling,
So to satisfy their seriousness, just make defective
Not the questions themselves, but the issue of spelling!
Human Malleability
Strange chaps humans,
They can believe one thing one day
And quite another the next,
It’s almost as if the world’s an ink blot
And a Rorschach is needed on standby
To tell them what’s up.
It’s no myth that a radical youth
Often fades into a disillusioned tripper
To the fourth age, or, contrariwise,
That age can embolden: Tony Benn,
Wilson said, ‘immatured with age’;
Me too.
So extracting the marrow
From the bones of an Enlightenment
Conceived in a white, male, imperialist
Europe is an important task;
Only if it succeeds will these fickle
Humans hold within their fragile,
Finite minds and bodies
Any prospect of seeing and thinking
Straight, of putting malleability
To rest, if fallibly and only
For the time being.
Humans may construct their truths
But only within the boundaries
Of what is and what they are.
God
I was religious once.
I stood by Splash Point on Worthing
Beach and mimed hymns
Before and after the local curate
Said a few words.
It was an adolescent interlude
Made all the more uplifting
By the companionship of girls
From our youth club.
After rugby on Saturdays
I used to cycle to the hall
Beside the Victorian gothic
Parish church in St George’s Rd:
To play badminton, to talk
Or to try and fathom which if any
Of the girls might welcome
An opportunity to spend
Time with me with a view
To auditioning for the role
Of ‘girlfriend’.
It wasn’t a simple matter,
This appointing of a special
Friend because I was shy;
Nor did God help much
Since he was all eyes and ears
And apparently omniscient,
But it was an apprenticeship
Of sorts.
Thomas Hewitt was vicar,
Garth and Gareth’s dad,
The first now a gospel singer,
The other an ex-BBC journalist;
We saw little of them, oddly,
Perhaps because they skipped
Local state schooling.
I was confirmed into the C of E,
Having attended Thomas’
Preparatory classes.
It all seems so very strange now,
That Christian sojourn by the sea;
We travelled en masse to hear
Billy Graham, and I think a couple,
Accepted his invitation for instant
Salvation; but I stayed seated.
I’m an atheist now, inclined
To be dismissive of talk of gods;
Kierkegaard advocated a ‘leap of faith’
But it’s strikes me that you’d jump
From the solid ground of philosophy
To pitch in the quick-sands of theology.
I was possibly a better person – whatever
That is – during my temporary
Abandonment of reason, plus
I found four girlfriends at St George’s,
But these are psychosocial phenomena.
I’m glad I returned to philosophy.
Utopias
They’re a mix the texts we study,
The neat authoritarianism of Plato
In ancient Greece, the calmer, Tudor-
Bounded aspirations of Thomas More;
Marx and Engels were more cautious,
Alluding only to prospects of freedom.
For a while I eschewed blueprints
Of ideal societies, preferring to let people
Choose when the time was ripe:
Comprehensive pre-planning for me
Brooks no free, spontaneous decisions
And invites totalitarian imposition.
I am not sure I was wrong about it
But I’m now more open to persuasion.
It surely takes a narrative beyond
Piecemeal engineering to light the fuse
Of a people’s movement, a vision
Of better futures, of caring and sharing.
So let’s anticipate what might be
Out of the dying ruins of what is:
We must think it and write it in bold
Type and post a call to action to every
Corner of a land troubled by a terminal
Decline born of insatiable greed.
Blueprints have a place then, as guides
Not manuals, as fuses not dynamite;
Utopias can be the fuel of the hope
That promises a society for the many.
Us and Them
You see that small boy over there
With the curly hair and vacant stare,
He hasn’t eaten for two whole days
If you believe what his mother says.
His mum’s the one with hollow eyes
Who’s queuing for food while he lies
Outside on the grass, still as a stone
While he patiently waits on his own.
Now that man you can now just see
Walking fast past the chestnut tree,
Apparently he’s worth two billion;
Enough to clothe and feed a million.
If only it was possible to forge a plan
To spread assets around, then that man,
While still living very well, could share
His money and make a stand to declare
That what trumps all in our brief stay
Is the kindness we show day by day.
Then COVID Came to Visit
Not only have I not had COVID
I know of nobody who died of it;
There are people who’ve had it
Who live nearby, but now it’s almost
As if they never had it at all:
I hope long COVID doesn’t return
To haunt them as they celebrate
Being born again and set their store
By whatever uncertain freedoms
The new normal will deliver.
One jab down and I feel safer,
Though still inclined to take care;
I shouldn’t die now if I catch it,
Nor join a queue for intensive care;
No danger of DNR notes affixed
To the end of a hospital bed.
All in all, this year of enduring
Risk, of house arrest, gardening,
Books, daytime TV and iPhones
Hasn’t been unconscionable;
We’ve had our savings and pensions,
We’ve had each other and our cottage
That used to be a National School
With its unkempt hillside of a garden.
There’s been time to think of COVID,
Mostly when I’ve felt neither like
Doing nothing nor doing anything;
There are the unlucky ones who left
Their families bereft, or settled
Into new lives with COVID’s mark
Left under skins and amongst organs;
And there are those in open prisons,
Prey to rapacious uncaring landlords,
For whom confinement has tortured
Body and soul and burgled hope.
As a sociologist I turn instinctively
To theories that purport to explain
COVID’s pernicious visitation,
And pieces of a 10000 word jigsaw
Slot tentatively into place.
What COVID has done is shine
A piercing white light on dreams
Realised and unrealised, illuminating
What enables and what constrains;
Every crack and fissure is thrown
Into sharp relief and the naked eye
Can see them growing deeper,
Wider, yawning fractures beyond
Healing and impervious to repair.
Under this unyielding, penetrating glare
The case for transformative change
Is apparent beyond dispute.
All that’s required is to prick the
Bubble of ideology within which
Capitalism’s emperor appears
Clothed in the most exquisite finery
That capital can buy.
COVID has rewarded the capitalist
Even as most have battened down
The hatches on shrunken worlds,
Jobs lost, rent unpaid, children
Hungry and hopes for the future
Kicked from austerity into the thick
Long grass of emergency powers.
Look, the emperor has no clothes!
His finery is made from the young hands
Of poor children too far away to see,
And they’re paid for from his inherited
Capital ‘wisely invested’ to accumulate.
The emperor of the rentiers is naked!
You can see him clearly now in COVID’s
Unrelenting flame of illumination.
When a Child Cries
Infants are crafty things, possessed
Of a low cunning in pursuit of goals
We are ill-equipped to understand.
We know this, we really do.
But when they cry their bodies
Squirm and vibrate with misery,
No part of them immune from
An impromtu act of total despair.
I’m a sucker and I often fall for it.
I want to pick them up, my arms
A refuge from the rude and hostile
World that’s denied them the only
Thing they’ve ever really wanted!
‘You don’t understand’, their eyes,
Pleading waterfalls of exasperation,
Tell you, ‘this means everything.’
I want to take them to the toyshop.
Neither ‘p’ Nor ‘not p’
Life’s a big complex multifaceted thing
Resistant to ‘it’s like this, or ‘it’s like that’,
A swirling river, it bears down on hard,
Tossing us up and down, no place flat
To catch our breath or take stock of where
Or who are, what futures we might dare
To foresee.
Possibly Heraclitus was right to insist
That we can’t enter the same river twice –
Or even once, someone, doubtless pissed,
Thought fit to add – because in a trice
All is foaming change and nothing’s stable,
Like life, so liquid we are simply unable
To foresee.
So abandon Popper’s forlorn ‘p’ or ‘not p’
And substitute a post-Hegelian dialectic,
Pause on the bank of the river and see
That all before you is movement, hectic
And resistant to a wrap-up proposition;
There are always eddies of opposition
To foresee.