A Labour of Love

It's a game, a factory, a vainglorious point-scoring institution,
Chews you up, spits you out, drags your entrails in the streets for all to sneer,
When you stand in front of those Victorian spires, those iron gates,
When you enrol and enrol and enrol again,
And hear them screaming for your soul,
The good, the great and the simply profane,
Clambering over your inert frame,
Wanting you for their GDP, their endless needs, their sycophantic, meaningless parade,
Makes your heart hammer your insides raw,
Like a battered iron casing,
Your intuition holds fast in the teenage storm,
Compels you, drives you, on and on,
Away from that which wishes to feed on you,
That which you never understood,
Except in your aching guts,
Except in the love of your Mother's arms,
And years later you come to rest,
Washed up, burnt out, heaving up,
Dizzy with relief that they didn't devour you with their snarling teeth,
All those loyal soldiers didn't catch you with their relentless, pounding drums,
Your gift is intact, shining like a lost pearl,
Glistening like an eternal promise, a sacred shrine,
Deep in the unplundered depths lies this protected, defenceless truth,
That which they wanted to steal from you with their grasping claws,
With their greedy, zealous, engineering minds,
That which was only ever yours to keep.
And now, as the shawl draws back,
It looks up at you like a little baby and smiles a little baby's smile.
It blinks in wonder at the sheer magnificence of it all,
Crawls into the light with its blinking eyes,
Pulls itself up tall just by your side,
Summons the strength of two thousand pointless years
And strides purposefully into this starving world.

(I have been struck this weekend by the outcome of the labour leadership elections. Don't get me wrong, I am not interested in politics but I am interested in leaders and how they behave. The Miliband battle made me think of loyalty as a leadership value. When is it appropriate to be loyal to yourself and when is it appropriate to be loyal to others? For me, David Miliband showed great loyalty to Gordon Brown in not challenging him for the leadership in 2007-2009. In contrast, his younger brother showed no loyalty at all in challenging David for the leadership battle this time round. But loyalty to what or to who? - family, party, boss, self, purpose? I went scrambling in my archives to see what poetry I have written that might speak to this theme. When I came across this poem with the title 'A Labour of Love' I couldn't help but smile. The first few lines certainly made me think of David. The word 'profane' made me think of Ed. The line referring to the 'love of your Mother's arms' made me think of Mrs. Miliband and what she is making of it all. And then, in the final lines, I was reassured that David will reap what he has sown. His 'gift is intact'. Despite the undoubted depth of hurt of this act of betrayal, his spirit will rise again. It will 'pull itself up tall just by his side' and he will go on to greater things. Ed likewise will reap what he has sown. I wonder what that might look like for him, his family, his party, the country? Let's wait and see...)

Fight, Flight or Forgiveness

These blows we are feeling,
That still feel real,
And they hurt and swell with pain,
They tempt us to run away,
Or to stand and fight and brawl,
For we think it is real,
And yet we can let it happen,
Like watching a movie scene,
We can be author not actor in this dream,
Distant and observant and still,
Whilst the blows are raining down,
And your ego is screaming for revenge,
And then the rage passes,
Like an impersonal storm that dies,
And you have not fought nor run away,
You are still standing, it was not real,
And now,
With the energy of forgiveness flowing in your limbs,
You move forward again as a leader in this world.

(For me this poem is aspirational. I see that it could be possible to take this approach in all situations however challenging yet I still find it difficult to put into practice. I find that I do not run away and I do not fight but I do get hurt by just standing still. The reason I get hurt is because my powers of forgiveness are not strong enough to create a sufficiently strong 'impersonal field'. There is a point where I do take things personally even if my outward behaviour does not betray this fact. On the one hand, these situations show me the edge of my development but I also wonder about protection. There are some situations where it is sensible and prudent to not be defensive or aggressive but to have appropriate protection. To not have protection might be naive and it might over-estimate your strength. We know that in a physical conflict protection might take the form of a shield. What is the equivalent of a 'shield' in a situation where it is not a physical attack but an emotional or spiritual attack? I don't know the answer to this question but I am sure as heck going to work on it because there are plenty of pointy-shaped things out there :). Any thoughts on how other people achieve this would be welcome. Beyond the purely personal context of this poem, I do still chime with its last line where forgiveness is positioned as a critical leadership 'competence' for the complexities of the modern world. In how many corporate HR manuals does this word appear? )