REFLECTIONS ON IGNOMINY
A freckled, slightly overweight Jewish boy
from Sea Gates, Brooklyn, crossed the Hudson,
and morphed, by dint of patronage and smarts,
into a Master of the Universe,
a digital Professor Moriarty,
a Bluebeard, Svengali, Dr No,
and, for a time, it seems, became the Master –
croesus, pander, spy, rapist, paedophile
Just when ‘Nothing To See Here’ had become
almost believable, many thousands
of virtual filing cabinets disgorge
evidence of the actual protocols
of conspiracy – not of a cultural,
ethnic, religious tribe but that
of rich men and rich men’s little helpers,
keeping their wealth safe at our expense.
Do only greedy, ruthless men become
mega rich, part of the one percent,
or do the filthy wealthy become
people without pity, their unbound
acquisitiveness demanding brief
rockets to the stratosphere, a town’s
water resources for their AI hubs,
and the despoliation of innocence,
the slaughtering of trust and of hope,
their arrogance broadcast in plain sight?
To be clever – and not even try to be good!
To have the means – and not be kind! Must power
always corrupt? Are we only: prey
or predator; Satan, Saviour, Scapegoat;
ignominy’s enablers?
Kate Harrison
May 29, 2026Wow! I have often wondered whether fundamentally corrupt people become so rich because they are corrupt or is it necessary in order to enable their corruption It seems easy to get away with the worst behaviour when you can buy silence or complicity.
Jeff Teasdale
June 7, 2026Another deeply thought-provoking poem David… The endless circle that is apparently ambition-power-wealth-greed-further ambition etc. in an upward (or downward spiral) which, for most, mires them in corruption. In our modern times only the last seem to get a mention, and rarely in the ‘news outlets’ which they also own and therefore filter. Genuine socially-minded philanthropists only get a mention in the Obituary columns of certain, few-and-far-between, newspapers.
In The Vatican, I once looked up at astonishing skills and creativity on the walls and ceilings of an enormous structure built for people who don’t actually ‘produce’ anything other than a perpetuation of ‘faith’ over ‘reality’ (although define either!), built on the pennies, pesos and sous of poor people buying ‘indulgences’ for first themselves, then for their old parents and, when that source had run out, for their long-dead grandparents… and beyond. It made me deeply uncomfortable that such great ‘art’ was funded by such a cruel con-trick on gullible and ill-educated people.
But can we have one without the other?
Still working on that one…!