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.”
Or “gone and done it.”
In recognition of the significance of this momentous step we’ve taken, whatever it may mean, I am uploading here a selection of 53 stand-alone short rhyming… continue reading
Tag Rhyme Royal
Words for an Earthquake
Parrot’s in his Tower – and That’s All, Folks
This stanza was written on the day after Mr Johnson’s election victory on December 12th, 2019. It will be the last stanza of “Parrot Addenda,” rounding off this series of 164 stanzas. It does not mean the Brexit story is over, of course. There’s plenty more to come. It just means that the situation is suddenly very different. The tension… continue reading
The Parrot Speaks of Fre-dom
In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer introduced Rhyme Royal to English poetry and all these stanzas of mine about Brexit share that long established rhyme scheme. And Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and one of those is “The Franklin’s Tale” which I love. And that’s where this medieval word “fre” keeps appearing, later to become “freedom.” But in The Franklin’s… continue reading
Plain Words from the Cage
The balloons are a Bristol image, since hot-air balloons often appear above the city. I ought to say, though, that whatever fills the Bristol balloons does not appear to be foul.… continue reading
The Gods at War, Following a Murder
May’s “deal” was voted down last night after the heaviest governmental defeat in history. Released from the ghastly, grinding and disgraceful progress of her inadequate deal, are we freer now to resolve things a reparative way, or will the hopeless nonsense of this poisonous issue merely change its shape, and muliply its warring elements ?… continue reading