In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: General

  • Jes in Yearnland

    Posted:

    Everything about the UK’s Brexit Agon smells of rot. For a start, the whole EU issue is fundamentally irrelevant and absurd, compared to the many truly urgent concerns that need our immediate, whole and best attention. We face real ills and they harm and threaten us. The EU is not, and never was, the cause…

  • The Parrot Ails

    Posted:

    The United Kingdom – so called – continues to stagger towards Brexit. The Government – so called – keeps just “winning” so-called “victories.” Under the so-called “leadership” of Ms May, our incompetent progress towards this terrible mistake requires us to shed our honour, our pride, our connectedness, our contact with reality, our common sense, all…

  • The 70th Birthday

    Posted:

    I posted this poem up on Facebook on July 3rd. Two weeks later, it had received 1,146 “Likes” and “Loves” and had been “shared” 5,210 times. The poem is by Michael Rosen and, in turn, he shared it on his own Facebook timeline and that separate posting was further shared many times. Michael was originally…

  • Parrot Speaks True and Plain

    Posted:

    This is probably the last of my series of Parrot poems. They were written quite thick and fast through June, with various very topical references. Thanks to my friend Roger Chaffin for suggesting I use the rhyme royal form. The references to a parrot come from a long and magnificent poem written in the reign…

  • Parrot Speaks of Dividends and Dishonour

    Posted:

    … continue reading

  • Parrot Speaks of Youth and Hope

    Posted:

    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.  … continue reading

  • Parrot Speaks of Community and Dust

    Posted:

    The three Parrot sayings going up this morning come more from Skelton’s original “Speak, Parrot” text than the two that went up yesterday. You can find at least some of the original poem on the home page of this blog (see right hand side). Obviously I’ve changed a great deal. But though the roots are…

  • Parrot Speaks of Law and Dust

    Posted:

    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…