Category Spin
Parrot Addenda
Over the Summer and Autumn of 2018, I have written a series of stanzas in rhyme royal, mostly on the subject of Brexit. Here they are, as a collection.
Each has been written as a separate item, rather than as part of a longer poem. They were produced in response to, and often very soon… Continue reading Parrot Addenda
The Crier Frets
They keep coming, still in Rhyme Royal. Once it was the parrot who begged liberty to speak. But now he’s become the town crier, in a cage, caught in a storm. Today’s stanza was brought to mind by a good piece by Matthew d’Ancona. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/05/networked-far-right-tommy-robinson It… Continue reading The Crier Frets
Paradise Destroy
“Humankind cannot bear very much Reality” is a quote from the poem “Four Quartets” by TS Eliot. If humanity is ever to be buried in a graveyard, once our work is done, this quote will be writ large on our gravestone… Continue reading Paradise Destroy
Parrot Speaks of Law and Dust
The caged parrot keeps talking and seems to have quite a lot to say. His original author John Skelton was alive during the Reformation, another time in which England broke away from Europe in various ways. For the Reformation was not
Parrot speaks of The People’s Will
Does May really mean what she is doing here ? There is a dog whistle sounding whenever she intones this dreadful phrase “I am delivering the “People’s Will.” In the latest examples of it, she is setting herself up as the “People’s” friend and ally –… Continue reading Parrot speaks of The People's Will
Poems in Public
Poetry once belonged only in open space – the mead hall by a great fire, where flea-bitten warriors sat at table with their lord ; or a place of worship or ceremony, the wedding, the funeral. Not in private, on paper, let alone on screen. Poetry belonged in the air between people, out loud… Continue reading Poems in Public
Dust
The poem I’m publishing here foresees the end of the world. The false god Me n’ Mine has too many worshippers to be withstood. Besides Greed, the angel which serves Me n’ Mine most faithfully is the Lie and it is the Lie by which the false god rules and will destroy us all… Continue reading Dust