Reverses

A few weeks ago I tortured my brain (and yours too, probably) with a blog and poems based on the palindrome. This week it's  reverses  - not nearly so mind-boggling, trust me. You're in for a spot of bi-directional time-travel and a couple of poems, one of which can (in fact must) be read both forwards and backwards. Are you sitting comfortably?We are all inhabiting our own Here and Now, each at a place and a point in time, on a journey that a combination of factors has led us to, directed by internal and external events, decisions, influencers, accidents. How many of us, given where we are now, would not be tempted to reverse at least some of the steps we have taken, some of the decisions we made? Equally, how many might be tempted by the opportunity to take a glimpse into our possible or probable futures? Such was always the lure of time-travel. I say always, but with the exception of the odd 9th century Hindu text and the occasional fairy story (in both of which characters fall asleep and wake up in the future - a one-way trip), the concept of being able to move both backwards and forwards in time has only been a cultural notion for the last century and a quarter, since H.G. Wells conceived the Time Machine.

essential time-travel apparel

Since then, it has become interesting to speculate about whether or not someone traveling from current to past times can change the course of events by virtue of arriving in the There and Then like some deus ex machina; equally if someone traveling to future times can change the course of current events armed with that glimpsed foreknowledge, thereby altering the future scenario. And beyond those puzzling ponderings, can time itself possibly flow in two directions? It is all still science-fiction.
It is also all a matter of perspective. Trust me to know where this is going and have a read of the poem below, written by Brian Bilston in 2016:
RefugeesThey have no need of our helpSo do not tell meThese haggard faces could belong to you or meShould life have dealt a different handWe need to see them for who they really areChancers and scroungersLayabouts and loungersWith bombs up their sleevesCut-throats and thievesThey are notWelcome hereWe should make themGo back to where they came fromThey cannot Share our foodShare our homesShare our countriesInstead let usBuild a wall to keep them outIt is not okay to sayThese are people just like usA place should only belong to those who are born thereDo not be so stupid to think thatThe world can be looked at another way
...now read the lines above in reverse, bottom to top.
Cleverly done and thought-provoking, don't you think? I'm sure none of the hundreds of thousands who have been fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria over the last twenty years saw a life in detention centres and refugee camps on their timelines when they were growing up, getting an education, entering professions, starting families in their once peaceful and prosperous countries. So how do we encourage the human race consistently to regard refugees in Bilston's bottom-up rather than top-down mode?

still from 'The Sixth Finger' (episode five of The Outer Limits)

My absolute favorite sci-fi programme from my boyhood was The Outer Limits, 49 episodes of superbly-written, cast and acted dramas aired from 1963 to 1965. The fifth episode concerned an experiment to accelerate a human being (a Welsh miner played by David McCallum) through the evolutionary process in precisely the hope that humankind might become more intelligent and caring. 
Unfortunately things didn't turn out for the best. The more advanced the specimen became, a dome-headed super-brain, the more destructive he was, which can be read metaphorically I suppose. The decision was made to reverse the process and that temporarily overshot, rendering him temporarily hirsute and caveman-like, before returning him to his original 20th century self, whereupon he promptly died from the stress of it all. (I've attached a clip of the closing few minutes at the end of the blog.) I guess we'll just have to go on taking very small and painful steps in real time towards that more intelligent and caring future and hope that our descendants survive to enjoy it together.
However, in the meantime I fired up the imaginarium this week to produce a poetic window on what life might be like in the future, supposing that human beings decide that the march of progress is actually a march towards destruction, and consequently act to reverse that march via some cataclysmic and comprehensive de-industrialising of society.

back to the future - the Fylde coast in the year 2121

Here's the poem, for what it's worth. I may expand it over time. And yes, that is Blackpool tower you can just make out in the artist's impression above...
RivurzdA plesent day dun, sensing spring in the ayreRoste ottur supper wiv weetcakes und pikkleLater hunny beer und singsongs on the gutturHappy famly fed und safe, praze to the LuddThis simpel lyf weer living wun wiv ar wurldThis harmuny wiv nacher, woz neerly spoyldBut ar wyzend wuns sore far of into the futturFortold ov distrucshun by megattuns ov bomz
Progres had to be rivurzd bifor orl woz rooindOrl mashinry was spurnd und orl bookz burndIz not az tho we dident no wot we wer dooingGud lessenz hav been lurnd praze to the Ludd
In case you're interested, here's a link to a short YouTube clip of the closing minutes of the Outer Limits episode that partly inspired my poem. Just click on the title: The Sixth FingerThanks for reading, S ;-) Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook