In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Tag: Poetry

  • The Crier Frets

    Posted:

    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 was featured in The Guardian, today.… continue reading

  • Paradise Destroy

    Posted:

    “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

  • Going Nowhere to Mean Nothing

    Posted:

    After the 2016 EU referendum,Theresa May kept intoning “The People have Spoken” with lugubrious reverence, as if trying to portray herself as some sort of priestess delivering holy writ. In fact, from first to last, from that unsound and unseemly referendum rumble, full of highly dodgy rude-boy doings, to our present horrendous and dishonourable impasse,…

  • Parrot Spots an Old Defence Line

    Posted:

    The parrot has just signed a petition in support of being in good national and continental health. Thankfully, those World War Two pill boxes along the North Downs were not needed, after all. The parrot wants to make sure that no one tries to force a present day parrot into an old, crumbling and nostalgic…

  • Jes in Yearnland

    Posted:

    Everything about the UK’s Brexit Agon smells of rot. For a start, the whole EU issue is fundamentally irrelevant and absurd, compared to the many truly urgent concerns that need our immediate, whole and best attention. We face real ills and they harm and threaten us. The EU is not, and never was, the cause…

  • The Parrot Ails

    Posted:

    The United Kingdom – so called – continues to stagger towards Brexit. The Government – so called – keeps just “winning” so-called “victories.” Under the so-called “leadership” of Ms May, our incompetent progress towards this terrible mistake requires us to shed our honour, our pride, our connectedness, our contact with reality, our common sense, all…

  • T-Bone Trump

    Posted:

    I have written these lines in recognition of Mr Trump’s Summer visit to the UK. But what is there to recognise, in truth, behind the crass appearances presented on TV ? The squalling baby in nappies above the London skylines ? The humiliation of this small nation as it rolls out its expensive red carpets…

  • The 70th Birthday

    Posted:

    I posted this poem up on Facebook on July 3rd. Two weeks later, it had received 1,146 “Likes” and “Loves” and had been “shared” 5,210 times. The poem is by Michael Rosen and, in turn, he shared it on his own Facebook timeline and that separate posting was further shared many times. Michael was originally…