Colin F. Jones

CONSIDERATIONS

~ 1 ~

The pedestal, that one doth mount, to reject one’s own ill wrong,
Is always frail because the foe, the truth, is always strong
And all the barricades that he builds, to block the true mans word,
Are so full of cracks and holes and gaps, that they are all absurd.
While themselves, they do corrupt, the more they guard their pride;
They seek support for failing strength, from the supporting side.
But one lie told, produces two, and two produces four,
That soon the image of the man, is not as it was before.
He’s lost his sense of pride and seeks, to shut the other down,
‘Tis power now that rules his head; he wears a paper crown.
But he who steers his ship with rage, that vengeance clouds his eye,
But withers on an unseen reef, despite the warning cry,
By he who would not be denied, the right of common speech,
Whose words suppressed, and thus restrained, his ears did not reach

~ 2 ~

‘Tis shock and horror when you fall, to one perceived as less,
By thoughts objecting to the truth, too proud to confess,
That not all who sat at student desks in college campus rooms,
Have finer minds than those who sweep the city streets with brooms,
And those who think they rise above the common flood of man,
Who wave advice and wiser word and less polished speech do ban.
In their conceit they isolate, the experience they can’t perceive,
And formulate oppressive rules to disguise how they deceive.
For he who thinks he knows much more, than you will ever know,
Because he’s going to where you’ve been, but must not let it show,
That what you say is wiser than the thoughts that he conveys,
He suffers his own poor reports then blames it on your ways.
We all must sometime swallow pride and admit when we are wrong,
For no one on Earth while they still live in heaven yet belong.

~ 3 ~

‘Tis prattle this to some who still believe they’re always right,
It infuriates their selfish urge to desert their ways so trite
For if one wallows long enough in flattery and in praise,
They tend to find their pedestal in disappointment oft decays.
One does not like to burst the bubble of any one sincere,
Yet some who are said gentlemen make it their fond career.
When you take away from God, the power to judge another,
And censor he who is your friend and is your equal brother,
You betray the trust that he conveys in trusting you to do,
What he in turn would also try to sincerely do for you.
A wise man does not scorn a friend who seeks to give advice,
For if he does reprisal might force him to pay a price,
For he who does not stand his ground for what he believes is right,
Is but a man who runs away from the big brother he must fight.

~ 4 ~

So one stands up sincere and fights for that which makes him free,
For those who fear the loss of friends if with them they don’t agree
Are but slaves to other men whose thoughts they must condone,
Or suffer scorn and censorship when they raise thoughts of their own.
Friends reveal their loyalty and the truth of their content,
When the strings of love are stretched beyond the line of discontent.
If suppression and uncouth restraint is used to close one down,
It is not an act of friendship but the spite of a deceitful frown.
Thus he who by such acts reveals that he is fallacious to a friend,
Moves the other in despair; his threatened rights he must defend
The man who is not tested yet, to stand and guard your back,
Must first be tried out at the front lest true loyalty he doth lack.
And he, who bases all his truth on what he thinks himself,
Will never know a friends true worth nor gather greater wealth.

~ 5 ~

‘Tis always those who nominate themselves as better men,
Than those around them doing their best sometimes to be like them,
Who feel superior in their conceit of what they think they are,
For too much flattery makes a man think he is the only star
That shines as a halo around his head that he might perfect be,
Until ‘tis found when he’s tested out that he lacks such dignity.
Such people say I make false claims; (to camouflage their guilt),
But when their flood recedes again it leaves exposed the silt.
For I am not the governor of their self appointed rule,
It is theirs to be made thoughtfully or to be made as a fool
I don’t judge them as they judge me; I judge them not at all,
They judge themselves when I provoke, what they have inside installed.
For who am I to say you’re not what you may claim to be,
I just help you to reveal it to yourself that your defects you might see.

~ 6 ~

My goal in life has never been to put another down,
For most do that without my help theirs is the choice to frown
I always seek the truth of things the honesty of folk
Who claim to have integrity when maybe I provoke
The actions that I take are mine and open to review,
And why you think I do such things, is simply down to you
I’ll know if what you say is true or if your words are lies
And either way the things you say will not be a surprise.
So if you want to slander me, speak ill of me or lie,
Please try to do it to my face; you’ll find I will not cry,
For no one needs to defend the truth, except perhaps the vain,
Those are the ones behind the doors from where they complain.
So guard you tongue if what you say is falsely said to me,
For through it I will know your heart is not where it should be.

~ 7 ~

To lose a friend is not a joy but real friends are not lost,
And if they were I’m sure that I could never count the cost.
Yet even those who don’t like me I am still loyal too,
For I do not change because they have a different kind of view,
You are a friend or you are not, no matter who you may be,
I can’t switch you off like a light, because you switch it off on me.
Your truth is yours and mine is mine, and mine, it is sincere,
For even though you run away, I will still be waiting here.
‘Tis only you who lives inside the skin that clothes your bones,
For even though you think we’re not, all of us are clones,
Your tutors may have changed your head to think a certain way,
And you have practiced long and hard to relate what they did say,
But me, well I no tutors had, so I built my own proud school,
And being the only student there I was the best swimmer in the pool.

~ 8 ~

When I did go to try it out and conform to all the rest,
I found I could not swim at all, although I did my very best.
The water well, it looked so deep and I sank just like a stone
Because the stroke they made me use was not one of my own.
They taught me how to hold my knife and fork in different hands,
Which was not the way I wanted it but was forced by their demands;
They made me eat green lumpy “spuds” and call the teachers Sir,
But who the hell were they, I thought, and my later thoughts concur.
They whacked my hands with canes, and with slippers whacked my arse!
It seemed to be all stupid stuff and just a bluddy farce
But still I found I liked to learn and was the top student in my grade,
But I was transported to another place just as I thought I had it made.
But if you think a kid of twelve, with fairies in his brain,
Can’t handle hunger and prejudice you had better think again.

~ 9 ~

This kid was made of sterner stuff than those who put me down,
Who thought themselves as better stock than this young pommy clown;
They shoved religion down my throat and none of it was mine
And tried to make me think like them but it was a waste of time.
I worked like hell and showed them up; they could not toil like me,
And I fought the best of them around and I did it all for free.
But still I was as shy as hell and quiet and polite as well,
I didn’t swear, respected girls, and liked the toll of the old church bell.
But no one liked one to be nice, they liked you to yell and shout,
They mocked politeness and restraint when I would wander out.
I hit the road at age fourteen to see what the world was like.
It was from home into the “flicks” a thirty mile hike,
But the practice would be good for me though it wrecked my tender toes
Because I had no shoes upon my feet, but that’s the way it goes.

~ 10 ~

Barefoot I walked for miles and miles along those gravel tracks
Without a scrap of food to eat or a coat to warm my back.
Sometimes I stopped and worked for blokes who always ripped me off
And it was always such hard yakka but still they would laugh and scoff.
I watched them work the Coorie blacks the same as they worked me,
They got nothing for the toil they did, and had to beg to get money,
*They got ten bob by agreeing to let the white bloke f….k their wives
Called Lubras then, and/or Gins, but that’s how such folk survived.
And as soon as they got paid enough on ‘walkabout’ they would go,
And so would I along the road to where I did not know.
No one stopped to help me out, no one offered me a ride
For to raise my thumb to beg them to, was denied by my own pride.
By the time that I was old enough to work for decent pay,
“There was no work to do no more!” That’s what they used to say.

~ 11 ~

I’d worked as a farmer behind two horses and a rusty plough,
Done pickin’ fruit and peas and beans, and milked the dairy cow.
I’d waded through the widespread floods to get our groceries home
And fought to save our place from fires by the hot wild wind blown.
I swung the axe to clear the trees and set the stumps to fire,
And on the muddy tracks and roads wrapped chains around the tyre;
And I went hunting with the dogs and tracked the victims down
And wandered in the wilderness because I didn’t like the town.
I lay in grease beneath old cars to make them go again
And cut bananas from the stools on the steep rock filled terrain.
And when I to went town I watched through the lattice screens the dance
Where pretty girls and local lads seemed to float ‘round in a trance.
And I would long to do the same but I knew I never would,
For that was another world where I would not be understood.

~ 12 ~

No one helped me to ride a horse, bareback I used to ride
And no one knew that poetry was where I used to hide.
I did not fail in anything that I set out to learn or beat
Though my clothes were ragged and I walked on blistered feet.
It was me alone against the world, against self censorship I fought,
The fear, the tears, the bitterness, in self conscientiousness caught.
What had I done to anyone that life so cruel should be this way;
My faith in God was vanishing for I’d lost the will to pray.
The lonely days, and months, and years; the rain, and frost, and fire,
Became the tutors for my life revealing falseness and the liar.
I studied everyone I saw and kept a profile of them all,
And yet I was not eighteen years old and about five and half feet tall.
I knew so much about many things that those older did not know
But of course I wasn’t good enough to advise them of their woe.

~ 13 ~

I had been a mechanic and a waiter, I’d been a die setter and a nurse;
I’d tilled the ground and lay on it in frost that I did curse.
I’d been in the ring and fought quite well and I’d hunted in the bush,
I’d climbed the sandstone cliffs up there where the wild zephyrs rush,
And kayaked down the rivers with my camera and my spear,
And always, when I went to sea, my distress would disappear.
I’d helped folk from the gutter and I’d nursed them back to health,
Designed and built the gardens of those wallowing in wealth.
I had drunk sweet plonk with Coories for their possessions they would share,
And had searched the dank dark alleys, for the desperate in despair.
I lived with the downtrodden with the castaways and the poor,
And the mass of indifferent faces from that side of life I saw,
Were the faces of the righteous, the religious, and the rich,
Who knew nothing of the hardships of those lying in the ditch.

~ 14 ~

I was soon to be a soldier; I was not quite twenty four.
A new phase of my life began on a foreign shore.
The training I found easy and in the camp lines I was bored,
But then came the tour of Malaysia and my interest was restored.
And there I found restrictions there were places one could not go
But I broke those rules so often that I got CB – a lot you know.
And I discovered my restrictions, my handicaps and found
There were bigger men and better men, and stronger men around,
But I was able to deliver when I was asked to do my best.
And I faced up to my committeemen’s and I passed every test.
I was not like many others like me, promoted over time,
Though all of us were brothers and had our own boots to shine,
For I thought about the training and I gave my point of view
To higher ranking people whom I was supposed to listen to.