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”.
In recognition of the significance of this step, I am uploading here a selection of 53 stand-alone short rhyming stanzas, commenting and reflecting on events and developments in the UK through… continue reading
Category pychology
Reflections from the Tower
My Way to You
I keep coming upon this poem in its folder, its digital “archive,” and it’s as if I’ve tripped up on it. It somehow sticks out, sitting meekly under “M” in its alphabetical order. But where really does it belong ? I never quite know what to make of it and yet I think it is possibly a poem I would… continue reading
Homecoming
The “home” I was thinking of when I wrote this poem is a particular landscape I happen still to love, not only because, in its own way, it is beautiful, but because I associate it with a seminal time in my life, a time of growth, of emergence, of true beginning. And at that time, it already seemed to… continue reading
West of Caritas
“The Conversion of Saul” by Michelangelo, Pauline Chapel fresco, Vatican City.
This “I” we each inherit, made spine
of the world, axis, pole,
look-out from the world’s helm
gazing on the universe,
gazing on you,
gazing on death…
“Mummy,” I said,
seven or eight years old,
“I have decided
that I am God.”
We were walking east
along Glebe Road… continue reading
… Centaur
The centaur belongs in Greek myth and is part horse, part human. Some aspects, or strands, of the story portray the centaur as teacher, and as having healing powers.
The photograph here is of the Uffington White Horse. It can be found in Oxfordshire, ten miles east of Swindon, on the Berkshire Downs. It is by far the oldest of… continue reading
… The Widow
Here is another poem of loss and it’s called “The Widow” (the title links to it). I wrote it some years ago, in sorrow for the grief of the person concerned, but also in awe at how she voiced her bereavement, the words she reached for, and the way she flung them out, time and again, to her… continue reading
A White Shirt Writ Large in the Rose Garden
Dear MP’s Office Manager,
Thank you for your earlier response and yes, please, I would like to hear the Cabinet Office’s response to your news, that by the 26th May you had already received 1500 emails concerning Mr Cummings.
I need to report that the responses I’ve heard so far have just left me brimming over with yet more outrage,… continue reading
Trace a Fraught Frontier
Where’s the fraught frontier between Mercia and East Anglia ? Guards were stationed here gazing out from within. And within was somewhere to die for. And without was someone to kill. I explored it once, that fraught frontier, now footpath between nettles. It was sunday and Cambridge families were out walking there after a good lunch. And where’s the fraught… continue reading