Oh, craven shadow
Can you draw your eyes away
And fix your gaze?
Can you ignore that
In front of you?
A truth
In its fierce intensity
Demanding your attention
Refusing to go away.
The inevitable is finally
Leaking out
Of the locked box
You’ve squirrelled away
Oozing out
From cracks and crevices
To show you
Your enduring shame.
Oh, craven shadow
A cancer that has been eating
At your soul
Invisibly doing its damage
Your suit of armour helpless
As your rotting corpse
Decomposes
A stench proceeding you
Growing stronger
More noticeable
Each and every
Passing day.
And even though
You control the airways
And set a nation’s agenda
Some truths are too big
To be contained
And this truth is one
That must be told
Your slights of hand
Cannot distract from this day.
There must be consequences
For those that shamed
And also, what of justice
For those silenced
For the depravities
On bodies soiled
For those whose very souls
Have fragmented
Living quiet lives burdened
Lives full of shame
Tortured lives
Extinguished
Oh, craven shadow
Time for truth
Your truth
The victim’s truth
To finally have
Their day.
Fascism has take a grip on America which will take years to tackle but we can also see its rise in Australia.
Fascism in the Breeze
Fascism has take a grip on America which will take years to tackle but we can also see its rise in Australia.
Dehumanisation of immigrants and the working class, attacking the university system, political corruption without accountability, increasing militarisation, increasing racism, media complicity and the spread big lies are some of the signs.
These are some of the things that we need to be vigilant against to maintain a vibrant and healthy democracy.
What are other things do we need to consider?
It began with a whisper An almost imperceptible murmur An uncomfortableness stirred That could be heard faintly In the breeze.
At first we ignored it That annoying irritant We rose above it Reassured by our moral superiority.
But the noise became louder Impossible to ignore Drowning out all rational thought As it inflamed all in its anger.
Nothing now left but cinders Yet I hear more whispers In the breeze.
My fingers achingly trace a path in the air
My fingers achingly
Trace a path in the air
Imagining your fingertips
Touching tentatively
A fleeting apparition
No longer there.
Spoken word on Covid-19. Its easy to forget how blase we were all about this before X-mas when it was something happening in a far away land. Now the whole world has been turned upside down.
I used stock video from Pexels site which I made black & white and added a number of effects in Adobe Premiere Pro. I liked how it started and ended with the same footage, but with the ending in colour.
The music was Royalty free music from https://www.fesliyanstudios.com which I treated in Adobe Audition to add effects such as coughing and laboured breathing… I hope I didn’t overdo that!
The poem was written over a few weeks as I tried to figure out what message I wanted to give. I guess I opted for realism. The future is uncertain and we can all hope and pray for the best. Hopefully, we’ll all learn from this and become a fairer and just society.
An angry fella. His face full of red rage. Full of hate.
An angry fella
His face full of red rage
Full of hate
His rancid, putrid breath
Stinking of cheap whiskey
His rotten, decayed teeth
On full display
His brain shut off
To rhyme or reason
His visceral thoughts
A myopic focus.
Staggering forward in false bravado
He’d pick up his well worn bat
Caressing it’s end in theatrical play
His old trusted friend
His old acquaintance firmly at hand
In prelude
And for devastating effect
He would smile
His all-knowing smile
And with eyes full of malice
Slurring incoherently
“Smash your fucking face”.
Then tensing at his fullest
He would swing that bat
With all his might
In violence, in vengeful hate
The reward for some small slight
That made him remember
Who he was
Insignificant
A pitiful man
Exercising his daemons
His self-loathing
And his terrible ritual would continue
Repeatedly
Now a muscle memory
He would slap her bloodied face
Again and again.
And if she did not fall, or cried or moaned or whimpered
Or if she did not cower or crawl away
Or if she did show the fear
Or respect his twisted brain craved
As close to adulation as he came
If she did not do it
His way
If he did not see it
His way
“That bitch”
He would kick her for the justice
He demanded
His way.
And as she laid down in her own blood
And as she laid down in pain
While that pathetic bastard had
His way.
In silence
In her shame…
To take his own anguish away
That angry man
That coward
That wife beater
All the while
Our survivor would pray
Her tears would mix with her blood
Pooling again
On that oh so stained floor
Which had seen this play
Play out this encore
Pooling
Indistinguishable.
This time though enough was enough
Inside her a barrier
Taunt from years of abuse
Beyond breaking point
Finally snapped
Shattering Into a thousand pieces
And she saw the universal truth
One she had tried so hard
To put aside
To ignore
This dangerous game
He would not stop
Or change
For this was his way
Why he had sought her out in the first place.
For nine times she had left him
And nine times she had returned
Nine incomprehensible times
To us
But not to her
The denier of history
To replicate
Her fate.
This time though
With new resolve
She reached an escape velocity
An escape trajectory
Escape
This time she would break free of her shackles
He would not bind her
This time she would not come back
This time
He would not own her
This time
She would be the master
Of her destiny.
So this time she fled
She ran away
Far from her land
Away from her people
Away from her shame
Alone, she would have to start again.
The best years of her life behind her.
To fight for existence
To battle her own demons
To fan her own faltering flame
A future yet uncertain
A life of continuous subsistence
But a life that was free.
But a life full of unknowing
Ill prepared
Not required you see
In ignorance of the economy
Now with white fella’s cards
To dig in their claws
To abuse
To misuse
A new ritual
To bash her another way.
For the cycle continues
Despite all our good intentions.
Background
One of series of stories that were inspired by workshops around financial inclusion I helped organise and run for the Salvos in Australia in Nov 2018 while working for Deloitte’s.
We collaborated with the Salvos, on our national charity day, looking at how to resolve issues related to the stigma and access to Salvos financial services across the five personas, each with complex issues. In this case it was of an individual who was also facing domestic violence.
I’m a bit of a newbie at Unity but I’ve given a go using it for animation, using Mixamo for the character creation and Adobe tools to try to bring these stories to life. I’ve updated the Unity 3D animation with improved models and lighting effects. It’s a step up with what I was able to do with Unity before but I have so much more than I can do!
Poems and videos by Vinod Ralh. 2018. All rights reserved.
Illustrations in video by Jean-Baptiste Vincent. 2018. All rights reserved. Music in video Life Is by Scott Buckley - www.scottbuckley.com.au
The Spoken Word 