Category: General
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I and Thou and Charlie
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In the early 1990’s, I wrote a series of poems called “I hyphen Thou”. The poems explored the image of the hyphen and were suggested by a book by the philosopher/theologian Martin Buber called “I and Thou.” The idea of the hyphen is an old favourite of mine. In fact I run a small charity…
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The Space Between
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All that matters of me resides outside my skin. Here I am dross an eye-lid’s flicker but where we meet and what we make there shall never leave the Earth. We have to make precious the space between us. It is humanity’s last hope. Our medium is diamonds if only we will shape them. …
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Let the bird of paradise speak loud from his cage
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I want to recite to camera a long poem, originally by John Skelton. And I want to do so from the top of the Tyndale Monument, a tall tower on a hill near Bristol. William Tyndale and Skelton both lived in the reign of Henry VIIIth but they have more than that in common. The…
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The sky is cloudy, the coast is nothing clear. Is there anything we should be doing ?
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I was contacted recently by a friend and colleague now retired. She was an NHS mental health worker, who gave her all for years flat out, feelingly and wisely. Now she paces and grieves. Here is a slightly abridged version of what she wrote : “I have met with several ex-colleagues recently. On Saturday I…
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Time for leaving, time for anything
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I am about to move house and to start a new life in a city still strange to me. Among all the many moments I have to give to packing and managing the move, I have found a few spare to write this. But snatching at moments seems an image for us all, in our…
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WHERE ONE IS THE OTHER MUST BE
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This England this Bling land this Bling and Buy Land this Hack and Spy Land this Try a Lie Land this Me and My Land We’re all in this together in Me and Mine Land. What price the soul in Buy and Lie Land, my lord ? “Price ?…
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The Night Before
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I wonder when the point of exhaustion is reached, north of the border. By now, most people know what they will vote tomorrow and many have anyway already voted, casting their die. But some there will be who even now don’t know and may be agonising tonight. They may be the best of all the…