Category Community
… Ethics in UK Politics
Here below is the copy of a letter I’ve sent this week to Lord Evans of Weardale, Chair of the UK’s independent committee on standards in public life. By coincidence, just before Mr Johnson’s extraordinary contortions in the House of Commons two days ago, Lord Evans’ committee produced a report recommending certain improvements in the way ethical standards are maintained… continue reading
In Search of Good Faith
I have been carrying a little string of thoughts in my head for several weeks. They make a point I haven’t seen being made elsewhere and which might be worth adding to the mix. Maybe it would be of interest to someone passing, even throw some further light, however dim and peripheral, on what’s happening around us, or at least… continue reading
What Are Words For ?
So how are we to use this astonishing power we have ? This ability to shape the air into sounds of meaning which then we can share – is it purely and only a survival tool, a way to influence, or sell a line ? Are words just hooks to fish with ? And on from that, does communicating through… continue reading
How to Speak in Times of Clamour
A long time ago, I went away to Greece and spent three months there alone in a hut, facing the rock pictured above. By now, I had lived a youth and much of an adulthood and this was a time for reflection, in case I could make some sense of all that living, never to be repeated or recaptured, all… continue reading
West of Caritas
“The Conversion of Saul” by Michelangelo, Pauline Chapel fresco, Vatican City.
This “I” we each inherit, made spine
of the world, axis, pole,
look-out from the world’s helm
gazing on the universe,
gazing on you,
gazing on death…
“Mummy,” I said,
seven or eight years old,
“I have decided
that I am God.”
We were walking east
along Glebe Road… continue reading
Counting
This poem seems to follow on a bit from the previous one uploaded here. But whereas I wrote “I Insist my Ribs…” over three years ago, “Counting” has been written in the last few days.
I have a vague idea of what was in my mind as I wrote this latest poem. And looking at it now, I’m increasingly seeing… continue reading
Facing West over a Small Field
Here is a link to a poem about the poet D.J. Enright and his French wife, the artist Madeleine Enright. (See one of her pictures, above). They belonged in worlds quite foreign to me, but in the last few months of their lives, I chanced to be their next-door neighbour.
I had moved into a bungalow in south west London,… continue reading