The United Kingdom has left the EU. We have vacated our seat at the high table and it is laid now for just 27 places. We’ve “got it done.”
Or “gone and done it.”
In recognition of the significance of this momentous step we’ve taken, whatever it may mean, I am uploading here a selection of 53 stand-alone short rhyming… continue reading
Category Language
Words for an Earthquake
What does Great Britain Stand for, these Days ?
What do we Brits stand for, these days, now that we have “taken back control” ?
Judging by our government’s grossly inadequate management of Corvid-19 – we stand for incompetence, incoherence and dishonesty.
Judging by Mr Johnson’s recent conduct over the Brexit negotiations – we are represented by the fatuous and delusional bravado of a juvenile hoodlum ; and again… continue reading
Wild Honey UK 2020
This poem above is a loose translation of “Wild Honey” by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. It is one of her most famous poems.
The slightly altered title here is an acknowledgement of just how loose the translation is. The poem’s original was written in 1934, after Stalin’s purges had begun.
I do not know Russian and have worked… continue reading
Who’s Human ?
The quote towards the end of this new poem is from “Requiem” by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, translated by A.S. Kline, 2005. She was writing of the Stalinist purges. Her poem of witness was not published until decades later, in her old age.… continue reading
I See Everywhere the False
I thought this was true in 2014, when it was written. I did not know then that the truth can become truer.… 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
Might Labour be the Force to Renew UK Politics ?
Our democratic politics isn’t working and, in my view, its dysfunction is one of the major causes of our present national crisis. In so many ways, our political structures and democratic processes – not just here in the UK, but manifestly in other countries too – are under attack and also in question. We have to renew them, not just… continue reading
The Lying Toad is Back, the Tousled Look, the Winning Smirk, Our Leader…
The prose piece that follows begins with the mismatch in the UK, between the present Prime Minister’s relative popularity on the one hand, and his long established disregard for the Nolan Principles of ethical conduct on the other. The piece provides a reminder that our Prime Minister has previously been sacked twice for lying and it recommends (again) that lying… continue reading
The Deployment of Force
Still on the subject of feet and their deployment, I ask myself this question : where am I to stand in the hallways of The Lie ? Here is my answer : on the hyphen between I and Thou, my surfboard in the endless storm.… continue reading
The Establishing of Ground
The reference here is to a book and an image I keep referring to. It is called “I and Thou” and is by Martin Buber.
Buber compares two essential ways of reaching out beyond the Self to meet the world : one is I – It (my object) and the other I – Thou (my neighbour).
In I-It mode, I… continue reading