Category: Poetry
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The Death of an Old Man
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Yesterday, a grand and often very beautiful funeral was held, following the death of a likeable, shrewd and vivid man. It is of course hard to separate the image we are given of Prince Philip, or ourselves put onto him, from the man he actually was. He surely had a similar problem, himself. Who was…
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Where You Live
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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,…
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A Severed Edge
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In the rush and flood of falsity and ill-doing that enter and surround our everyday lives, among all the mis-steps and momentous errors born of that rush and that falsity, I keep returning to certain physical landmarks that at least give the appearance of standing firm and of meaning something worth standing for. One such…
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Across the Way
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“The Reader” is a national charity. “From its global Shared Reading movement, to its Calderstones Park home in Liverpool… “The Reader” builds lively communities that bring people together and books to life.” And my project “Poems for…the wall” and “The Reader” are exploring ways we might collaborate a bit. In the meantime, one of “The…
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Let’s Hear it from Janus on the Union
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The Roman god Janus had two heads, two faces. They are usually depicted as looking in opposite directions. And the UK has a Gaffe man and a lying Toad for Prime Minister. He says, “Call me Boris” but perhaps “Call me Janus” would ring a little truer. And those two heads are not only turned…
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What a Funny Time to say Goodbye to the Chaos Maistro
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So now, suddenly, it’s off with his head, the maestro, that shiny hate-filled spear-head of Brexit. He conducted his own removals, exiting through the front door of course, in full view of the cameras, delivering insult to the last. Not so long ago, a raucous parrot I know, a “bird of paradise” who insists on…