Category: abuse of free speech
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What a Funny Time to say Goodbye to the Chaos Maistro
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So now, suddenly, it’s off with his head, the maestro, that shiny hate-filled spear-head of Brexit. He conducted his own removals, exiting through the front door of course, in full view of the cameras, delivering insult to the last. Not so long ago, a raucous parrot I know, a “bird of paradise” who insists on…
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Words for an Earthquake
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The United Kingdom has left the EU. We have vacated our seat at the high table and it is laid now for just 27 places. We’ve “got it done.” Or “gone and done it.” In recognition of the significance of this momentous step we’ve taken, whatever it may mean, I am uploading here a selection…
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What does Great Britain Stand for, these Days ?
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What do we Brits stand for, these days, now that we have “taken back control” ? Judging by our government’s grossly inadequate management of Corvid-19 – we stand for incompetence, incoherence and dishonesty. Judging by Mr Johnson’s recent conduct over the Brexit negotiations – we are represented by the fatuous and delusional bravado of a juvenile…
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Wild Honey UK 2020
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This poem above is actually a very loose translation of “Wild Honey” by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. The slightly altered title here is an acknowledgement of just how loose the translation is. The poem’s original was written (I think) in 1933. Stalin had been in power for around a decade and his…
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Who’s Human ?
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The quote towards the end of this new poem is from “Requiem” by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, translated by A.S. Kline, 2005. She was writing of the Stalinist purges. Her poem of witness was not published until decades later, in her old age.… continue reading
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The Gaze Blank and Pitiless
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WB Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” was written almost exactly a century ago, but if it’s possible for a poem to become truer still with age, then surely this one does. And yet…Yeats wrote his poem in 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence…