Category Archive: PETER’S WRITING
The Windmills of His Mind
In the northern Summer of 2025, we learned that former President Joe Biden is writing a memoir of his Presidency. He also mentioned that a number of European leaders have kept in contact with him, seeking his advice and continuing participation in affairs of the World. We have commented (almost) enough on the Biden Imbroglio, and don’t want (too much) to kick a man when he’s on the ground, so instead let’s hum a little tune, with apologies to Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Noel Harrison: “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a…
Continue Reading →qui tacet consentire videtur
Who wants suppression, of our hearts and minds, To herd a throng assaulted? Sheep fit to bleat such that all one finds Is oppression, exalted? Open their heads and then probe inside And gasp at the lacuna. You’ll find, not affairs that rise like any tide: Vamped Fortuna. When they run astray, when their passion is all spent Context is absurd, not the Go; When he who is silent seems to shrug and feign consent The strongest word is, until Doomsday, “No.”
Continue Reading →“It’s in the App!”
Travelling north, the beautiful North, Our brains in summer remission, An epidemic of uselessness Fully met with our bullish permission. At a nice public house on the river We selected some seats, unreserved Within a cool room, away from the throng, Baking outside as deserved. The inside bar was deserted A sign told us to order by App; Our humour had died, neither Q-code we spied Nor a manner of bridging the gap. From a neighbouring table we borrowed a card Displaying the requisite code, But after twelve minutes no answer there came We thought about hitting the road. Ultimately,…
Continue Reading →Write, Don’t Talk
(Random thoughts regarding Adelaide Writers’ Week, 2023 – a verse dialogue) (With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Stearns Eliot) READER A lovely form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeding calm its presence shed, A tone so pure, far from earthly leaven, A message reassuring, newly down from heaven. ‘Twas some comfort – A fact drawn from bone; “We read to know that we are not alone.” AUTHOR And yet here it shrinks back, as if mistook! That weary, wandering, disavowing look! ‘Twas all another feature, look and frame, And still, methought, I knew, it was…
Continue Reading →The Old Stoic’s Lethargy
POEM FOR THE YEAR (with apologies to W. H. Auden) This earth in 2023 Is not the planet fit for me, A world, I need, to give me hope Opposed to the end of a rope. *** My Eden landscapes and their climes Are great constructs from rational times, When reason meant, at least, induction, Not dogma posed as deduction. *** The plastic bags we gather to be Transformed as if by alchemy: I chose to send them whence they came, The ground, from fossil fuels by name. *** I’m now required to approve Blighted wind farms that rarely move:…
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