… and post an old poem, new to this site

I wrote the poem "Total Information Awareness" in 2005. It was published in 2014. I have read it many times at poetry open mics and slams. What we are seeing in 2025, particularly the persecution of migrants, has been in production for more than 20 years. I knew. “We all” had the means by which … Continue reading … and post an old poem, new to this site

In which I elaborate a little

The line is: "I'm Spartacus." It is taken up one by one, each repeating the phrase, "I'm Spartacus." (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054331/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_2) Emphasis on the "I". Who is the "We" in "We are all Palestine Action"? Can the speaker's authorial voice speak for me? Could I presume to speak for "We all..."? No, I have to speak for … Continue reading In which I elaborate a little

I am Palestine Action

Not hiding behind the "we are..." Who "we" anyway? Count me. This shit has gone on for, what? About 76 years. Silence is compliant.

Or will it…?

Everything turn out all right? Well strip the knickers off my naked emperor... Sometimes I feel we "Boomers" just might have dropped the ball.

Poetry demands utility

I think this will turn out all right if I just come quietly.

With my tin foil hat on

I am suggesting that there are sets of affinities that encourage people and their friends, firms, institutions, communities, governments and enterprises to act in certain ways. Blackboard provided a means towards control of the curriculum should someone want to. The patent application was, possibly, late dot-com chutzpah. Its subsequent deployment strikes me as strategic and in line with neoconservative affinities. Evidently, today in the deep winter of 2025.

I make models, ships in bottles…

These phrases, from a poem of mine (here) begin to articulate my understanding of what art, and poetry as a kind of art-in-words, does. Among other things, art mediates the distance between the moment and the eternal. Art represents the macrocosm in the microcosm, bursting like Michelangelo's Awakening Slave: a moment out of the stone … Continue reading I make models, ships in bottles…

Slaughter of the scapegoats

After "they" drown or otherwise kill, or deport (to where?) all the scapegoats, I mean refugees - do you fucking seriously think people do what migrants do because it is an easier and pleasanter option? - then, "they" will have to turn on themselves. But how can "we" be around with popcorn to watch the … Continue reading Slaughter of the scapegoats

Connections to the great unknown

I walked out humming the chorus to House Carpenter: "Save your love for loneliness, save my love for sorrow..." and said hello to neighbour, Peggy Seeger. In Oxford 2025 it is still just possible to be one degree of separation from Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

Was hit by a one-two of poetry

Was hit by a one-two of #poetry yesterday readin' Deep Wheel Orcadia (Picador, London, 2021), a sci-fi novel by Harry Josephine Giles (find their books and more here https://harryjosephine.com/) in trans-linguistic Orkney verse mediating & mediated in nowimmediateurgent language. Boom! And, Martina Evans, "Drunken Driving an extract" (The Stinging Fly 51.2 Winter 2024-25, pp24-33 https://stingingfly.org/magazine/): … Continue reading Was hit by a one-two of poetry