In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Poetry

  • 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 Notes a Toad on the Hop

    Posted:

    This stanza was written last night after I read that Mr Toad was about to head off to meet Mrs Merkel and Mr Macron, etc. And Mr Toad is going to tell them that the Irish back stop was “undemocratic” etc. But today it turns out that there has also been an exchange of letters…

  • The Parrot Notes Mr Toad Grown Larger

    Posted:

    Today, UK Law seems to have decided that it is not a penal offence for an accountable holder of public office, such as a member of parliament, to lie to or otherwise seek to mislead, a sovereign people. This despite the fact that all members of parliament have sworn an oath to tell the truth,…

  • The New Berserkers Take the Stage

    Posted:

  • The Parrot on Sanctuary

    Posted:

    This piece looks back to when John Skelton wrote his poem “Speak, Parrot” in the sixteenth century. All these rhyme royal stanzas about Brexit I’m writing, refer to that poem, in one way or another. It is supposed that Skelton wrote it in the precincts of Westminster, where the medieval laws of sanctuary were still…

  • The Parrot and the Elephant

    Posted:

    This piece was written a few days after Mr Johnson became Prime Minister. Mr Toad seemed quite puffed up by now, that jolly mop on top sticking out in all directions. He was centre stage and the cameras were following him everywhere. And again we kept hearing that “Labour Must…” And “Now’s the Time…” but…

  • Mr Toad Leapfrogs the Stars

    Posted:

    Since his accession, Mr Johnson had been upping the ante with regard to a “No Deal Brexit” and spraying money here, there and everywhere, as if Austerity had never existed. But where was all that Tory money coming from, with our economy tanking ? What about these many years of austerity cuts we’d been suffering…

  • The Parrot Meets Mr Toad

    Posted:

    This piece was written immediately after we heard that Boris Johnson had won the Tory leadership contest. The image of Mr Toad, a rather puffed up character in the children’s book “The Wind in the Willows” had already occurred to me. The Tories seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of plagues with which to assail…