In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • National Poetry Day

    The UK’s National Poetry Day took place on Thursday 4th October.

    The given theme was “change” – which seemed topical enough.

    I took real and enormous pleasure in spending some of the day in St Katherine’s School in Pill, on the outskirts of Bristol. I was acting as poet-in-very-temporary-residence, a public position with a slightly hazy job description, but one I aspire to.

    The role included giving a poetry reading during the lunch hour. Here in pdf  are the poems I read, set out in the order I chose to read them. I think they worked pretty well and reading to that keen young audience felt just wonderful.

    Most of the poems are mine, but not all. The vast majority of those that were not mine were taken from the project I run called “Poems for…the wall” which supplies poems for public display, free of charge. In all cases, permission to publish was requested and granted some time ago, on the understanding that the work concerned would not be sold for profit and the settings in which we published or displayed it would be public ones, such as waiting room or class room. I re-publish them here, on the understanding that the same – or sufficiently similar – conditions apply.

     

     

     

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  • Parrot Finds Honour Lying Forgotten Among Our Ruins…

    … and knows that honour must be the foundation of any future we might have.

    The Background :

    This latest little poem records actual events and an eloquent speech in the UK’s House of Commons in the Spring of 2015.

    For a video of an excerpt of the speech, see : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32073791

    For an article published soon afterwards see : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11497116/Who-is-Charles-Walker-Tearful-Tory-MP-played-as-a-fool-over-botched-Bercow-plot.html

    The “last day” mentioned in the first line is a reference to the last day of the Coalition government under David Cameron, in March 2015.

    There was a little plot in operation, involving a cast of Tory characters (see below) and aiming at the eventual unseating of John Bercow, still the Speaker of the House of Commons. John Bercow is another Tory, but is unpopular with some of his colleagues, presumably because he insists on keeping them as much in order as those Labour people on the other side of the House.

    The plotters’ aim was to spring a Commons vote concerning the election of the Speaker, on this last day, when a significant number of the Labour opposition would already have left to return to their constituencies. But Labour got wind of it and held back enough of its MP’s. Also a number of Tories objected, enough to vote the government motion down.

    The “honourable fool” who made the speech was Charles Walker, MP for Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, and Chair of the Commons Procedure Select Committee.

    The “clever men” in the plot included the Right Hon. Michael Gove, Chief Tory Whip at the time, the Right Hon. William Hague Leader of the House of Commons on this his last day in post, and the Right Hon. David Cameron, our Prime Minister at that time, who was hurrying back from a meeting in Coventry, in order to take part in the vote.

     

     

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  • Parrot’s Cage

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  • Parrot Peers

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  • Parrot speaks to the 2-Bit mobsters

    This latest parrot stanza refers to Theresa May’s encounter with the EU leaders in Salzburg yesterday and “The Sun’s” headline which appeared yesterday evening.

    It said : “EU DIRTY RATS – The SUN SAYS we can’t wait to free ourselves of the two-bit mobsters who run the European Union.”

    “The Sun” is owned by the far right billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, friend – apparently – of Mr Donald Trump, America’s Minotaur. Murdoch’s gutter press had much to do with the UK hacking scandals and other criminal press abuses both of individuals and of the law. “The humblest day of my life” and all that two-bit jazz.

     

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  • Satan at Meat

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  • The Parrot Seeks a Cage

    Here is that parrot again, bird of paradise, thundering from his cage in rhyme royal, claiming his liberty to speak his truth. He fears for his young and sees no true or worthy leaders anywhere, merely creatures of self-interest seeking their own gain from our flounderings in the valley of the shadow…

    Or put it another way : where’s the sheriff ? The lynch mob is out and running riot and it’s the outlaws who’ve taken back control….

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  • I Send Greetings

    The building pictured here is St Aldhelm’s Chapel. It is Norman, dark and damp and situated on the edge of a Dorset cliff, facing south. Sitting there, enclosed in those thick walls, you feel a bit like being in a deep cave, but placed up high and on an edge, stubborn yet precarious. Last Autumn, I gave a poetry reading in the chapel and wrote this poem in the days beforehand, so that I could include it as part of the programme.

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