Category: Poetry
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Despatches to my Gazan Son
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At the end of last year I translated into English a long poem by the distinguished Turkish poet Cahit Koytak. In Turkish, the poem is called “Gazze Risalesi.” It was written in 2008, but could just as easily have been composed last Summer, during the Israeli bombings which took place then, too. It seems that…
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Poems for United Response
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United Response is a registered charity which supports people who have disabilities. It aims to help them fulfill themselves and be less isolated in our community. It seeks to ensure they receive their basic human rights. In mentioning this particular organisation here, I am not seeking to advertise it at the possible expense of others…
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Day Naught (Friday 8th May 2015)
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We wake to fangs and lowered eyes and a few new sound-bites for breakfast. Davie.orc sees true that five more years of effing tories call for a sugary word or two to sweeten the toad of his venomous victory. “Talk ‘fairness’ chaps,” he glows to his new cabinet. “Sound all nice again.” Round the corner,…
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What’s a “Carer” ?
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Each of us surely wants to be acknowledged as a “caring” person, even while so much that is uncaring is happening all round us – perpetrated presumably by aliens. The Head Rude-boy of Blingland has presided over changes in the Benefit system that disgrace us all, even while they continue sufficiently popular with his constituency…
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Wrestling with my Shadow
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My shadow dogs my path. It dwarfs me, this daemon, this desolate god. Could I live shadow-free ? Would I fly ? What would be left of me ? Here are some more thoughts on the shadow : First Sightings I can say this with real pride : no one but…
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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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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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I See Everywhere the False
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I see everywhere the false, the masked, the sleek and hollow, the bought and the creatured. Their words twist the wind tug at my mind and steal from me the hymns of my life the sacred. True words die the moment they pass between these creatures’ teeth. Humanity is on the…