Skelton’s parrot is a bird of paradise. But he mustn’t go on too long. If he has truth to tell in our storm, and wants to be heard, he has to be strategic. His cage is also his sanctuary.
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Category culture
Parrot Speaks of Youth and Hope
Parrot Speaks of Law and Dust
The caged parrot keeps talking and seems to have quite a lot to say. His original author John Skelton was alive during the Reformation, another time in which England broke away from Europe in various ways. For the Reformation was not just a matter of religious upheavals and a royal divorce. There was also a power grab and a land… continue reading
Poems in Public
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, the poet had a recognised… continue reading
Poet on the Cliff
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 into it is always open and… continue reading
Rafts in the Flood
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 site. It illustrates… continue reading
The Flotsam of Frantic Dreams
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 over again. Where have… continue reading
… High Noon this Easter
Let’s recall the film “High Noon,” that great Western. The outlaw and his hoodlum cronies are riding into town. They want revenge on the sheriff, the keeper of the law. The sheriff scours the town looking for support, a posse of townspeople who will help him defend their community from the outlaws. The townspeople know him well and trust him.… continue reading
The Rule of the Rough Beast
The “Rough Beast” is a phrase from “The Second Coming” by YB Yeats. Written in 1919, it is a poem that becomes more topical with each passing day.
The last three lines of the poem above are a deliberate reference to TS Eliot’s lines from “Four Quartets” – “Humankind/Cannot bear very much reality.”
And the middle section is… continue reading
HATRED : A SESTINA by Robert Friend
Hatred is wanting to hurt and its fulfillment dancing on someone’s grave. Because the insult was grave, I must repay hatred with hatred, abandon all pleasure: the dancing, the flirting, the wallowing wantings of every day. How drab their fulfillment when compared with the pleasure to hurt. I plan to avenge the hurt if it takes all my… continue reading