This Week’s Snow
It buried all beneath a
blanket of little white lies,
each flake guilty of
momentarily erasing
all our broken truths – a
cracked road, a crumbled
wall, the spill of yesterday’s
life from an up-turned bin –
and in communion with
the great pretence of
all things clean and new.
And even as we danced like
mad and, with joy, like children,
made our own untruths – to
stay away and steal a day –
we knew our feet would scuff
and press and churn to ruin,
that brightest white would
turn to grey and, once more,
with sudden chill, we recalled
the lies we tell, how snow is
never liquid paper for the soul.
Archive for January, 2013
Poem: This Week’s Snow
Posted in personal, poems, tagged lies, me, poems, poetry, snow on January 23, 2013| 1 Comment »
A patient, publicity-shy (and patronising!) puss
Posted in entertainment, popular culture, tagged cats, funny, garfield, humour on January 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »
There’s something amusingly patronising about the way this cat handles its owner, determined to make the point that it rather wishes to be left alone. You can just imagine what’s going through its mind. Jim Davis’s Garfield probably captures it…
Poem: A Drunk Lover Of Words
Posted in personal, poems, tagged me, poems, poetry on January 21, 2013| 1 Comment »
The Drunk Lover Of Words
I should write, in this fug of
alcohol and dreams and snow,
with words like ripe cherries
waiting to be plucked and eaten,
sweet and sour and stony-hearted.
This should be my Ulysses, my Emma,
my Don Quixote, my Scoop, my
Lolita, my Lucky Jim, my Austerlitz,
my Clarissa, my Catch-22, my Nausea, my
Jane Eyre, my Heart of Darkness.
I should write, in this haze of
bravura and need and dust,
with words like rare jewels
yearning to be shaped and polished,
bright and hard and beautiful.
This should be my Entirely, my Howl,
my Dover Beach, my V, my
Still I Rise, my Life Is Fine, my Brown Penny,
my America, my Dream Deferred, my Romance, my
Always, my Deaths and Entrances.
I will write, in this riot
of caffeine and lust and night,
with words like cut arrows
aching to be nocked and loosed,
straight and true and hitting home.
Beauty from brokenness: more street art from OakoAk
Posted in arts, culture, tagged art, arts, culture, oakoak, street art on January 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Street artists have a unique eye for taking things that most of us walk past, or regard as ugly or broken, and making them into something very different. Funny, surreal, thought-provoking and sometimes just beautiful, there is a tremendous variety of street art out there around the world.
It can provoke passionate discussion, with some dismissing it as merely an excuse for graffiti. Somehow, though, I think it is more than that, saying something about the urban areas in which we live, and giving value back to things that have lost their value and (sometimes purpose) through decay, damage and vandalism.
One of my favourites is OakoAk, described on his own website as a “French artist who likes to play with urban elements”. His work is simpler than some, often eschewing perspective illusions and instead going for the comic, occasionally tugging a heart-string.
Here’s a selection of some of his most recent, courtesy of Bored Panda:
Poem: A Commute Diverted
Posted in personal, poems, tagged commute, commuting, me, personal, poems, poetry on January 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
A Commute Diverted
We shoved and shuffled
in this brighter morning,
blue skies and sun
belying warmth,
cloudy breath and
huddled shiver an
overture to our opera
of epithets and sighs:
a tragi-comic Tannhäuser,
on West Ham’s platform stage.
Poem: Old Pictures Prompted By A Morning’s Frost
Posted in personal, poems, tagged history, me, personal, poems, poetry on January 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Old Pictures Prompted By A Morning’s Frost
A sepia dawn reveals
a two-tone world,
surrendering colour to
frost’s brush,
reminding us of
long ago, of men in
hats with scythes
and Threshing Bees.
A cruel cold heralds
a quiet kill,
testifying intent with
frost’s knife,
reminding us of
long ago, of men in
helms with guns
and Yellow Legs.
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Former party Chief of Staff. Former Special Adviser. Writer. Liberal sort with views on lots of things.Where Am I Coming From?
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