Latest news (25.10.24):
I have added new poems about Gaza to the selection here – please scroll down towards the end to find them. I read two at Gig for Gaza, a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestine, at The Plough Arts Centre, Great Torrington, Devon, on 24.10.24.
The latest Ted Hughes Society podcast has just been released, and this month’s episode is me reading from my second collection of poems The Thermobaric Playground, published in 2022 by Dempsey and Windle under their Vole imprint.
You can find the podcast on the Ted Hughes Society host Acast at https://open.acast.com/
on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/
and Amazon Music at https://music.amazon.co.uk/
My book Wild Track: poems with pictures by friends was published by the artist Sian Bonnell at Trace Editions in 2005.
I have given readings in the ‘New Voices’ series at the Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall (with Susan Wicks, 1992) and at other venues in the UK and US. My poems have been seen on London buses, in the calligraphy of Stephen Raw and in anthologies. My first book of poems, Wild Track, was published by Sian Bonnell’s press, Trace Editions, in 2005. Also in this selection is the title poem of my second book, The Thermobaric Playground (2022), plus a new version of it from 25.10.24.
Wild Track
Filming’s finished for the afternoon
but the soundman wants another minute.
He needs to tape for atmosphere.
So we sit on in the Sussex glasshouse –
the floor a mess of cables, wires,
DAT machines, reflector screens and mikes –
and start picking up those under-sounds
we edit out of normal hearing:
first an expectant, surreptitious hiss,
like a stylus kissing glossy vinyl –
or a kettle’s quiet sigh towards the boil –
then something hushing from the wainscot.
There’s the sound of the town and the downland,
the lull of a faraway train. The dusk
is settling like dew, deep inside the head.
It’s time to wrap but we’re still here,
holding the shell of the earth to our ears,
listening for the death and birth of stars.
Rising (October 2019)
Trafalgar Square, an evening in October,
the southeast corner, beside a wooden tower
quickly assembled out of Lego-slotted
panels, with four locked-on. A woman seated
ten feet up looks relaxed as darkness falls.
One arm encased within the structure, she smiles
down at the crowd in front of the makeshift
soundstage. We sit and listen for the drifts
of samba drumming coming from the Strand
and waves of singing much closer at hand –
a line of rebels gathered round the comrades
who Superglued their skin to nearby roads.
When the police make rushes towards them
we hear their voices strengthen with our anthem,
belting out People gonna rise like water
We gonna face this crisis now
I hear the voice of my great grand-daughter
Saying keep it in the ground.
Now Ali Smith and A. L. Kennedy,
the ‘Rebel Writers’, passionate and funny,
perform in shifting rainbow washes – violets,
blues, yellows, pinks and soon the first rain spits.
Everyone’s crew we say but there’s real know-how
rigging good mikes and lighting. Philip Hoare,
in shorts, is imitating the bright clicks
of killer whales he met in the Atlantic.
A man in high-viz bursts in from the side
shouting ARRESTABLES NOW PLEASE FOUR NEEDED
and a young couple get up straight away,
two older volunteers following more slowly.
We listen to a Greenland woman’s ice words
and then a Marshall Islands girl’s salt words –
for one new land is melting into being while
sea-rise sinks the other’s beaches, home and fields.
The future starts to flow around our lock-ons’
tower, lapping at the embassies and lions,
now edging up the column from which Nelson
keeps his weather eye on duty being done
below – with all the flags fluttering XR
and heavy seas arriving from Trafalgar.
The Thermobaric Playground – day 19
The fight, threatened for months, is in full swing.
A creepy bully, who lies, cheats and steals,
picked on a smaller, well-liked boy – whom we
cheer on and shout advice to while he’s battered.
Teachers and seniors say they cannot intervene
but tell us no one is allowed to leave. It’s known
that the aggressor has a weapon which
he’ll use if cornered – no one will be safe.
Helpless and shamed, we go on watching a
psychotic beat the shit out of a kid.
Some start to walk around the playground talking
to themselves, mouthing fu…fu…fu…fu…fu…
* * *
President Putin has decided that today
he’ll teach Ukraine about the vacuum bomb.
His lesson takes a pre-school’s breath away.
The Thermobaric Playground – version two
The fight, threatened for years, is in full swing.
A creepy bully, who lies, cheats and steals,
picked on a smaller, well-liked boy – whom we
cheer on and shout advice to while he’s battered.
Teachers and seniors say they cannot intervene
but tell us no one is allowed to leave. It’s known
that the aggressor has a weapon which
he’ll use if cornered – no one will be safe.
Helpless and shamed, we go on watching a
psychotic beat the shit out of a kid.
Some start to walk around the playground talking
to themselves, mouthing fu…fu…fu…fu…fu…
* * *
Netanyahu has decided that today
he’ll teach Hamas about the vacuum bomb.
His lesson takes a pre-school’s breath away. 25.10.24
A hatefilled mob
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s description of marchers for a ceasefire in Gaza, autumn 2023
A gathering of the honourable
A gathering of the wise
A gathering of the just
A gathering of the well-informed
A gathering of the kind
A gathering of the merciful
A gathering of many faiths and none
A gathering of the good
A gathering of the generous-spirited
A gathering of the imaginative
A gathering of the caring
A gathering of the bannered
A gathering of the badged
A gathering of those who can be passionate without becoming bigoted
A gathering of marchers walking with each other
A gathering where some unroll their prayer-mats in a sidestreet
A gathering of those who love their Samba bands
A gathering of those who want a Ceasefire
A gathering of those who want it now
A gathering of those who are allergic to lies
A gathering of the independent-minded
A gathering of those who know their history
A gathering of the sceptical and savvy
A gathering of those with empathy
A gathering of the like-minded
A gathering bonding ages
A gathering bonding our ethnicities
A gathering of Middle England
A gathering of our Rainbow Nation
A gathering of 500 hundred thousand friends
Say what you like
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but while they’re just as merciless as Putin they’ve not only avoided
Western sanctions – they’re using Western bombs
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but when they bomb Gaza it stays bombed
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but when they go out to cut the grass it stays cut
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but when their boys rape prisoners – with a broomstick or a dog –
those Palestinians stay raped
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they’ve kept their Apartheid going
long after South Africa had to change
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they don’t pussyfoot around with the UN or the International Court of Justice
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they said exactly what they wanted when they took power –
the illegal annexation of the West Bank
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but was it their fault when Western handwringers used words like ‘unconscionable’ when they should have said ILLEGAL?
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but didn’t they call their victims ‘animals’, ‘rats’ and ‘snakes’
and carry out their genocide in plain sight?
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they’ve long known what pogroms mean and how to inflict them
with 21st century weapons
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they don’t get hung up on such niceties as ‘collateral damage’
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but just when we all thought Polio had gone they brought it roaring back again
along with old-style carpetbombing and mass starvation
Say what you like about Bibi and his gang
but they know what they want – everything from the river to the sea
23-24.10.24
Leafleting for Gaza in the High Street October 2023 – May 2024
I’m alright
No, thank you
I’m alright
What about 7 October?
I’m alright
Yes please, thank you
I’m alright
Stick it, mate
What about the Holocaust?
I’m alright
What a farce (scornful laugh)
I’m alright
Oh, it’s Israel/Palestine
I’m alright
No, I’m good
I know EVERYTHING about Gaza
I’m alright
I’ve read the Bible and Palestine doesn’t exist
No, I’m fine
Shoot them shoot them all
No thanks I’m alright
My views are completely different to yours
I’m alright
I’ve read it and there’s nothing about 7 October
We’re on the Jewish side of this
Not interested, got enough worries in our own country
I’m alright
Israel rules
No thank you, I’m alright
Yes, thank you
I’m alright
Stupidity goes on
I’m alright
Thank you – bless you all
Go home. (Revised 25.10.24)
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