In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: materialism

  • Posted:

    Footnote : The words at the head of this poem, from Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, are spoken by the man about to become Richard III. In the play, he has just finished murdering the rightful king, Henry VI.        … continue reading

  • How to Speak in Times of Clamour

    Posted:

    A long time ago, I went away to Greece and spent three months there alone in a hut, facing the rock pictured above. By now, I had lived a youth and much of an adulthood and this was a time for reflection, in case I could make some sense of all that living, never to…

  • Where You Live

    Posted:

    This poem was finished on the day of Joe Biden’s Inauguration, January 20th  2021. It does not have the glitter and panache of Amanda Gorman’s poem recited on that day, but I think it carries a great deal of the relief so many of us will have felt on receiving Biden’s clear signals that sense,…

  • Britain’s Return to Health

    Posted:

      I want to talk about the British Labour Party which – despite everything – still occupies the ground I look to for the beginning of this nation’s regeneration and return to health. But “ground” is one thing ; the withered and stunted vegetation I see presently over-running and littering that ground, is another. To…

  • What is a Hyphen to do in 2020 ?

    Posted:

    There’s A and there’s B, but that’s not all. There’s also the connection between them. What is it ? They are sharing more than just the air. They were born to share more than just opposite sides of the same wall. A hyphen-line, a connecting scratch on the page, a fragile raft of some sort…

  • Dust

    Posted:

    Lost in the chaos of present events, we – or something in us – look to leadership for orientation, guidance and comfort. And the same something perhaps assumes that, the worse the crisis, the better that leadership must be and rescue is on the way. And assumes as well that, in this chaos, our own…

  • The Parrot Speaks of Fre-dom

    Posted:

    In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer introduced Rhyme Royal to English poetry and all these stanzas of mine about Brexit share that long established rhyme scheme. And Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and one of those is “The Franklin’s Tale” which I love. And that’s where this medieval word “fre” keeps appearing, later to become…

  • 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