Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Bard From The Sea
    The Bard From The Sea
    The Bard From The Sea
    Ebook8 pages3 minutes

    The Bard From The Sea

    By Rori O'Keeffe

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    After a recent holiday in the Maritimes, I came home filled with images of the ocean, and felt the urge to pour my share of humanity's waters onto the page. Is well-designed participatory democracy what people are truly yearning for? I think so. Our leaders have the mind of the few, and override the will of the mind of the many on a regular basis. A million people are far wiser than a thousand, it has been proven, and yet small cliques of rulers continue to inflict their people with the needless suffering of corrupt and incompetent law-making.

    An imaginary bard comes from the sea of humanity's shared consciousness and tells us what we know to be true in our hearts - if only the laws were truly of our own creation, then the flames of hope could be rekindled in a new, creative age.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRori O'Keeffe
    Release dateAug 27, 2014
    ISBN9781310050909
    The Bard From The Sea
    Author

    Rori O'Keeffe

    rookee75@gmail.comA thought for my fellow journeyers:The new narrative of the right, I've noticed, is downright scary. Is the following an accurate characterization of the new right, or is it satire?"Women have been oppressing men. People of colour have been oppressing white people. LGBTQ people are oppressing straight people. Political correctness is nothing more than a concerted effort to advance those people's agendas. If democracy leads to rule by the weak, stupid and perverted, then to hell with it. Dictatorship is the best and surest way of enshrining the status of the the male, the white, the straight."I wish I could say it's just satire, but observing the multitudes of right-wing voices on social media, as well as paying close attention to the American GOP's ultimate fulfillment of Reagan's dream, it's obvious that Americans are flirting with catastrophe. Beware modern conservatism: It's nothing but authoritarianism, pure and simple.How long will it be before Canadian conservatism becomes infected with this virus? Not too long, I don't think. The same well-moneyed forces are at work here as in the U.S. Expect a sharp shift further to the right if the Republican party takes control of both chambers in the next U.S. midterms.What are whites, men and straight people afraid of? I think the common denominator of their fears is the challenge of having to compete for jobs and status in an inclusive society. Most are insecure because they are woefully unprepared psychologically to compete on a level playing field, having been sheltered by generations of unearned privilege. Soothe them, don't make them feel worse about themselves (think of Hillary's poorly-considered reference to the "basket full of deplorables." That comment may have cost her the election. It proved to many that liberals just hate the uneducated and mostly poor white people of the country.)Whatever you do, don't try to make them feel inferior. That is central to their fears about themselves in an increasingly inclusive social environment. It's important, because if the U.S. goes down to dictatorship, then most or all the other democracies will as well, and civilization will expire in a global Orwellian nightmare. There are so many scathing things I could say about these democracies, but they are almost paradises compared to what a future of dictatorships would be like.Please be kind, unwind.Peace.

    Read more from Rori O'keeffe

    Related to The Bard From The Sea

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Practice of Poetry

      Jan 4, 2022

      The Practice of Poetry
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Poet’s Craft

      Jan 1, 2020

      To begin with a definition: A poem is a text structurally constrained by the repetition of any language element(s). The continuum of poetic constraint is extensive, stretching from operations that a reader will find completely imperceptible to overwh

      9 min read

    • Article

      Does Poetry Have Street Cred?

      Sep 6, 2019

      Does Poetry Have Street Cred?
      10 min read

    • Article

      Orlando Spirit Of The Age

      Jun 11, 2019

      Orlando Spirit Of The Age
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Poetry Of Perseverance

      Aug 15, 2018

      The Poetry Of Perseverance
      11 min read

    • Article

      Reflections

      Dec 13, 2020

      Reflections
      1 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Apr 6, 2023

      Shelf Life
      6 min read

    • Article

      Vagrant & Vulnerable

      Aug 16, 2017

      Vagrant & Vulnerable
      12 min read

    • Article

      Water Believes What We Cannot

      Nov 1, 2020

      I wrote this love letter in the spring, when there was pandemic, which was news, and weather, which was not. Now pandemic has been superseded by police brutality, the American presidential election, and wildfires. The unknowns, the unknowable, accumu

      19 min read

    • Article

      On Writing Poems Facing Into The Broken World

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kaveh Akbar and Jane Hirshfield have been in a running e-mail conversation since January 2016, when Akbar first contacted Hirshfield about doing an interview in his Divedapper series, before his first, widely acclaimed book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Al

      16 min read

    • Article

      VAGRANT & VULNERABLE

      Aug 16, 2017

      VAGRANT & VULNERABLE
      11 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2023

      And god created the waves and we the graves beneath, bodies madeparticulate by the force of water against water, water against rock, againsttime. I descend into the deep in a kind of prayer, listen to its centuries.Make me pay, will you, make me hurt

      3 min read

    • Article

      City of God

      Nov 21, 2022

      City of God
      8 min read

    • Article

      One Word: Avareh

      Oct 17, 2019

      One Word: Avareh
      6 min read

    • Article

      Some Notes On Poetry

      Feb 28, 2023

      Some Notes On Poetry
      12 min read

    • Article

      Love Your Bookstore: River Dog Book Co.

      Oct 30, 2019

      River Dog Book Co.'s BrocheAroe Fabian shares all of 2019's Armchair Travel Bookclub Picks, from Sarah Vowell to David Sedaris. The post Love Your Bookstore: River Dog Book Co. appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Joy Of The Illegible

      Sep 1, 2023

      Books I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes Tin House Books, 2023 paperback, 104 pages, $16.95 Megan Fernandes’ latest collection of poems, I Do Everything I’m Told, begins with an epigraph from Gwendolyn Brooks: “Sit where the light corrupts y

      6 min read

    • Article

      Bernard / 1

      Jul 1, 2018

      Bernard / 1
      2 min read

    • Article

      How Roger Deakin’s Love Of Water Inspired Me

      Oct 15, 2023

      It is strange to come to know Roger Deakin so intimately and yet not know him at all. Like many others, I first met him in the pages of Waterlog when I read how he slipped into the spring-fed ditch beside his old farmhouse and swam during a summer th

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Bard From The Sea

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Bard From The Sea - Rori O'Keeffe

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1