In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Month: February 2017

  • Despatches to my Gazan Son

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    Justin C McIntosh has given his permission for his photograph above to be used for the cover of a long Turkish poem by Cahit Koytak, now published as a book with an English translation alongside. I am proud to have been one of the translators. The original Turkish poem is called Gazze Risalesi.  In English…

  • Shavings from The Rainbow

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      What is God, after all ? If maggots in a dead dog be but God kissing carrion, what then is not God ?   And when the war began it seemed that the poles of the universe were cracking and the whole must go tumbling into the bottomless pit.   You feel an agony…

  • The Angel Overhead

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      In his grief, he asked the angel hanging overhead, his faceless confessor  : Why, Lord, do sinners’ ways so grossly prosper ? How can you allow the Lie so fatly to preside ? And the angel answered : I invited you to my feast, my laden tables, my radiant halls, and for my reward,…

  • Snowdrops

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    … continue reading

  • Earth Words

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    … continue reading

  • Body Parts

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    After death the eye fixes of course. It was just a part – now discontinued. Each pupil has stopped in its own disjointed way, having nothing to look at any more, no one to show. I looked at her, the mother of my children. She could not look back of course and instead just looked…

  • Poems for…meeting the “Dangerous Stranger”

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    Here below are links to four poems.  Each was written in a language spoken by people Mr Trump wants to ban from the United States of America. Please read them. The non-English original texts all have good English translations alongside. Farsi Ebrahimi Persian Khoi Arabic Monzer Masri (Syrian) Somali Samadoon The poems come from a…

  • Sad Songs of the Brain

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    Three of them. I haven’t yet found a way of actually displaying them as a post here, though it’s easily done on Facebook. But this link takes you to a pdf version : Sad Songs of the Brain Why the paltry brain, the paltry individual ? Why “in here” where the brain is ? Why not…