Category Archive: Poetry
We should be kind
Statue of Philip Larkin at Hull by Martin Jennings; photo by Paul Harrop
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) The cult of celebrity infects the quest for perfection: how can we expect the best from a human endeavour if we require general perfection of those that strive? You could play a parlour game and cite ceaseless examples of the highest art that would never been born had its creator been held to some prevailing standard of conduct (or thought). Take Philip Larkin, the best English poet of his time. We find from certain biographies* and the gleeful poring over of unguarded correspondence that he had thoughts, impulses and views. [*We except the very accomplished and mature book, Philip Larkin,…
Continue Reading →Essence of Dick
"Let Me Make Something Perfectly Clear" (1970 photo of Nixon by Jack E Kightlinger)
“A place in the national firmament… Greatness is more than government. To make exciting mischief or dull salt; Hazard the chance of ruin, lay on fault, Set the highest stakes through piracy But who the hell to handle it, to cut free; To build me a mad image, up to anything Other than domestically, one who’ll thus bring A welcome beard. Under my dark sun, hold hard! The one you serve was dealt the bleakest card.” (What serves power, if one’s form at flood Is splendidly bedight yet daubed with mud? And the ‘new King’…
Continue Reading →Deconstruction of Desire
How strange to find Ms Kahlo at M. Manet's café...
Rich, bored, and the afternoon is wet. Turning the pages of Vogue, sipping anisette In the big window of the coffee house, Staring at him from shiny pages is a black girl in a white blouse. Without, on bumpy pavements tripped upon by swanky heels No rainbow settles with the rain splashed by Mercedes wheels And mediocre men and women scour shop-fronts in their quest To find something or, perhaps, someone who’ll pass their personal test. This street is where the rich pass time, Where recession does not stroll And at the sidewalk’s end there is no crime, No quiet…
Continue Reading →Lust
photo by Soffie Hicks)
A boy stands waiting on the line, Boredom stoutly kept at bay, Her sideways glance could speak a tome If noticed, but he missed and has to see the play. All he has left is the sleep of the just And protocol is honored in the breach, A life fully fit for drowning In silver surf way out beyond the beach. D’ya ever see the film called If? Who knows what the hell it was about But there’s a scene in it where The lads sit around, Turn a girlie magazine inside out; One boy — played by Malcolm McDowell,…
Continue Reading →The Terrorist Impulse
(Governo da Grecia, 1920)
Can I be labeled pious, Or a martyr, or a missionary, Naive or just a fool, If I cavil at the doings of a group of fat brigands? Hoeing into goat at table, Wiping mouths that dribble claret, Hawking, grasping, clamoring, Not washing their hands? Does the innocent observer Fall into the snare, enjoying feelings of contempt and loathing, Wallowing in smugness, Desperate to impose his disapproval and disgust? Yes, enraged by the indifference Of the gobbling hedonistic toughs Who fail to heed the warning smoulder, he must. One must.
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