I would not build a city, cities are a symptom, of man’s inability to control greed not only in wealth but his habit to reproduce like rabbits. We are not meant to live in what is tantamount to poultry farms, then be brainwashed into thinking this is what we want. I live in a world of compromise. To live how I desire, I would need wealth, and I do not want wealth. Since birth I fell for the propaganda, “You want this, you “need that” After my cancer I saw all that as clear as day, but not a thing could I do except compromise.
The place I would design, I guess would be called a comune, where all contributed, and no one profited from others skills, children are educated in life, and the old are venerated and cared for. Of course this is a pipe dream, people, probably EVEN MYSELF have become too corrupted to achieve it. If I had been awake maybe at the age of twenty, well who knows!
The first thing in curing any habit, is recognising that you have it, at least I have that.

I’m having a change today, a snippet from a Cat Steven’s Lyric.. From his song Where do the Children Play ? From the album Tea For the Tillerman.

“Well, you’ve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air. But will you keep on building higher and higher’til there’s no more room up there. Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry ? Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die? I know we’ve come a long way, We’re changing day to day, But tell me where do the children play ?

PIPE DREAM.

I walk on the narrow path, basket with foraged mushrooms and wild garlic in my hand, the sun shining through the trees lighting up the pine needle carpeted land.

I can hear them now, children playing far away, their laughing, and that occasional playful scream. I can see the hamlet, my wife in her garden, those kids playing in the stream.

I shout “Ann” she waves, two grand kids leave their friends, come running with open arms so happy and pleased to see me ! Then my sweet wife calling, so you’re finally home for tea ?

She meets me halfway home, we stop at the clucking hens and pick up fresh brown eggs. We enter our cabin fine and cosy, I pull the footstool up to rest my weary legs.

The kids have stopped their playing, night is beginning to fall, the fire is crackling, the kettle whistling owls are beginning to call.

Scrambled eggs and mushrooms what a fine repast. We sit and listen to the silence broken by the hooting owls, and watch the shadows from the fire cast.

Tomorrow I must chop some wood and it’s harvest time for some crops we’ve grown, She takes my hand and leads me then to the bed covered by the quilt by my lady sewn.

I fall asleep, but then wake up, somethings very different, what’s that blue light flashing, and those sounds like a baying hounds. I stumble out of a different bed, look out of a different window, 15 foot off the concrete ground.

The blue lights gone the howling stopped replaced by other noises, the air is sour, and where’s the stars, why are we surrounded by brick built houses.

It’s dawned on me now, it was all a dream, and I’m back to the living nightmare. Back to the place where I don’t belong back to the land of nowhere.

All words (except Where do the Children Play) Meadowhead Bard.