A few days ago, my partner pointed her rather basic smart phone in the direction of my aging mug and held the phone there, with amazing steadiness, while I talked at it for the next three minutes. I argued that, if a holder of public office, or applicant for public office, or candidate for election to public office, is… continue reading
A Larger Size of Time
(written for Sylvia, aged 90) Does the moment ever shrink, as if walls are closing in, or skyline flattening to some endless level of empty sea ? As hour by hour the years accumulate it might be thought that the high moments of your life must lose altitude, intensity, freshness. But I question that conclusion. Each… continue reading
Parrot Addenda
Since the Summer of 2018, I have been writing a series of stanzas in rhyme royal, mostly on the subject of Brexit. Each has been written as a separate item, rather than as part of a longer poem. They were produced in response to, and often very soon after, various events and announcements that occurred during the weeks concerned, in… continue reading
In Despite of White Horses
Who is Mr Corbyn ? Mr Corbyn is a mist, a mild man standing on a platform made of our storm, carrying our projections. How to disentangle the yearnings of the young audience and the nightmares of the old one, from this slight, ageing man on the platform ?
He has a life time behind him of stubborn, non-compliant conviction… continue reading
The Crier Frets
They keep coming, still in Rhyme Royal. Once it was the parrot who begged liberty to speak. But now he’s become the town crier, in a cage, caught in a storm. Today’s stanza was brought to mind by a good piece by Matthew d’Ancona. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/05/networked-far-right-tommy-robinson It was featured in The Guardian, today.… continue reading
…And Smash the Butterfly
Is this latest little necklace of words in the Rhyme Royal verse-form only a portrait of Mr Trump ?… continue reading
Paradise Destroy
“Humankind cannot bear very much Reality” is a quote from the poem “Four Quartets” by TS Eliot. If humanity is ever to be buried in a graveyard, once our work is done, this quote will be writ large on our gravestone.… continue reading