In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Community

  • Poems in Public

    Posted:

    Poetry once belonged only in open space – the mead hall by a great fire, where flea-bitten warriors sat at table with their lord ; or a place of worship or ceremony, the wedding, the funeral. Not in private, on paper, let alone on screen. Poetry belonged in the air between people, out loud. Accordingly,…

  • Dust

    Posted:

    The poem I’m publishing here foresees the end of the world. The false god Me n’ Mine has too many worshippers to be withstood. Besides Greed, the angel which serves Me n’ Mine most faithfully is the Lie and it is the Lie by which the false god rules and will destroy us all.  …

  • Poet on the Cliff

    Posted:

    Let’s look again at St Aldhelm’s chapel, a small square Norman building on a  cliff-edge. It stands at the very tip of a promontory on the Dorset coast called –    a bit confusingly – St Alban’s Head. The chapel is small and dark and inside it is very damp. This is because the door…

  • Lying to the People is a Crime of High Treason

    Posted:

    All Westminster MP’s are required to swear to tell the truth. I have been told this on the good authority of my own MP. She told me that new MP’s must swear to abide by the seven Nolan principles. The sixth of these states that holders of public office should be truthful. But the Nolan principles are…

  • Rafts in the Flood

    Posted:

    The lords of misrule continue to flood our minds and lives with their disgraceful doings. But I can speak here of two small developments which, for me at least, are cheering and act in a way as rafts. One concerns a new website, designed by Joseph Wolf : https://poemsforthewall.org Here is an image taken from…

  • The History of the United Kingdom

    Posted:

    Click here for a summary of this piece, consisting of just over 700 words. Are You Sitting Comfortably ? The history of the United Kingdom (whose every seam is under terrible stretch and strain just now) continues so fast, so scattered, so hurt, so incoherent, so unguided and ill-advised, that it is hard to keep up,…

  • Lament at UK Election time 2017

    Posted:

      I cannot just argue or disagree when my own country decides to throw itself into the sea.   If Britain is an oak tree centuries old, then I am a leaf somewhere to one side, barely visible and increasingly wrinkled.   But the great tree’s nature still courses through me and my short life…

  • The Flotsam of Frantic Dreams

    Posted:

      We don’t know any more where our lives belong or even where to hide. The walls of home hold nothing up or out and the door hangs slack on the hinge.   Where have our lives gone ?   I consult the news and the world ended several days ago. Today it’s ending all…