ON BALI: four pieces (2 poems, 2 essays).

Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
BALI, INDONESIA Green, deep green Chlorophyll blinds the eyes keen Black earth, brown aches Sticky mud between toes cakes. Tears irrigate the picture painted under the labouring harvest’s stricture Paddy, palms, coconuts, frangipanis Creations of peasant hands canny. Rice sold and eaten Suffices to keep deep want beaten But…

POEM: Fried Rice (Nasi Goreng).

Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
We were talking about food last night and a memory came back to me – for the umpteenth time. Narrow and dark and most of all hot. If I ended up at a back table, 3 or 4 metres inside, the sweat would pour from forehead and my hair…

ARTICLE – After THE ACT OF THE KILLING: Indonesia, 1965: rehabilitating victims, rehabilitating revolution by Max Lane

Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
Indonesia and 1965: rehabilitating victims, rehabilitating revolution under a counter-revolutionary state. Max Lane Text of notes used for talk delivered at Conference: “After The Act of Killing: Historical Justice and the 1965-66 Mass Killings in Indonesia”, University of Melbourne and Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat, Jakarta, August 30, 2013.  It is very heartening to…

Poem” The Wretched’s Choir”

Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That wakes a wretch like me I once was lost, myself now found Was fooled, but now I see. T’was to fight that taught our hearts of fear Yet to fight do fears relieve The wretched’s choir did then arise A new world to…

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many […]

SHORT COMMENT: On feminism and feminism

Originally posted on MAX LANE ONLINE:
Over the course of the last twelve months, due to developments in the small Australian, British and Indonesian lefts, the issue of the Marxist orientation to feminism has become higher up in the current discussion agenda. Over the last 30 years, I have been part of a tradition that…