The painter, Turner,
Hid in a boat on the Thames
In 1851.
He moored it mid-stream,
So those taking the Census
Couldn’t question him.
But, nevertheless,
While avoiding the State snoops –
Keen to publicize
His life’s intimate
Details to all and sundry –
He’d become famous:
For his dream landscapes;
For ‘The Fighting Temeraire’;
For his red-gold skies;
Stonehenge at sunset;
Salisbury Cathedral’s spire,
Wreathed in brooding mist;
Wreckers’ rugged coasts;
Seascapes of Northumberland.
Turner froze all night
To catch a day’s dawn,
Then he’d paint it as timeless –
The light of the world,
While he kept hidden
From authority and State power,
Avoiding capture,
This man in a boat,
J. Mallord William Turner,
Freeborn Englishman –
Who chose to live by
Spurning the powers that be –
Just rowing his boat,
Looking for beauty
In whatever caught his eye,
As well as for truth.
In Turner’s painting
‘The Slave Ship’, bodies in chains
Are thrown overboard
By the slaves’ masters
To be set upon by sharks.
A routine practice
When the slave owners
Found their cargo troublesome,
Or too ill to treat,
Unprofitable to feed
Or just pining to be free.
The snares of the State
Are now much subtler,
But slaves are still rounded up,
Farmed for their taxes,
Spied on by cameras,
Questioned by nosy strangers
Filling in long forms
Such as the Census,
So the State can know who’s who
If there’s civil unrest.
But, bobbing in his boat
And never to be enslaved,
Turner ruled the waves.
He disobeyed –
Was disaffiliated
From Queen and Country
And in ‘The Burning of
The Houses Of Lords and Commons’
He paints it with glee –
Painting fire and light,
Liberated from the gothic gloom
Of power and privilege.
Heathcote Williams
Thanks Heathcote, this blast is timeless. 10 years ago when the census before last was taken, I noticed it was extremely nosey and that they were threatening a thousand quid fine if you didn’t fill it. When the form collector buzzed my intercom I told him I was refusing to fill it in because I didn’t appreciate being threatened with a thousand quid fine.
The recent census was even more abhorrent because the company licensed to carry it out was Lockheed-Martin the arms-dealers. Jobs for the boys. ‘Not only did this raise the question of confidential information about every single person in the country being in the hands of a military-industrial corporation, it’s as if the identity of every single person in the country was being spiritually commingled with the arms race and the warfare state. Again there was a thousand quid fine threatened. Most people fell for the bluff, even those who were questioning it. Myself and many friends didn’t fill it in, and nothing happened to us.
Feels good to be off radar….
Comment by Niall McDevitt on 2 November, 2012 at 3:37 pmNice one Heathcote.
Comment by Roddy McDevitt on 6 November, 2012 at 11:13 pm