Revolution NOW

Today is Poetry Day 2016, when we recognise the contribution of the poetic arts to our history and culture. This year, in keeping with the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the theme is Revolution. To celebrate Headstuff are sharing…

Today is Poetry Day 2016, when we recognise the contribution of the poetic arts to our history and culture. This year, in keeping with the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the theme is Revolution. To celebrate Headstuff are sharing…

The Lure of Love after the painting, The Snake Charmer, Henri Rousseau, 1907 June nights late I am transported To a moist and primitive land And in its jungle confronted By strange tethering. I am mute and robbed of my voice, I…

Feeling Sexy       Exercise? I only run my mouth. Though sometimes, if feeling adventurous, I’ll also do an alcohol run. Ordered my beach body months ago, and it’s yet to get here; never online shopping again. Can ya pass the fries? What…

On the Street Where You Live It is one of those late autumn days when the trees on the street seem to have nothing to do. They stand shivering in puddles of leaves, hands waving to keep warm, bold rustle of summer now a bald whisper. …

The Desert It is almost one month since I last wrote. With distance things have become clearer. Every surface feels alive under my bare feet; rough cotton, wet grass, flat rocks with crystals embedded. Mornings are chaotic with birdsong…

The Uses of Poetry Ammar, ten, is thankful for The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams whose two volumes (Carcanet, 2010) kept him warm all last night. They were precious indeed, so cold under the clear sky of the Kurdistan …

Not Since We Began While trying not to get my best boots any wetter and fording a small impromptu stream I watched a leaf, briefly, fully yellow and caught within a rain-river. I remember how you said it wouldn’t rain as I was…

Vote of No Confidence It’s not the manner of your going— be it in an accident no one saw happen, not even the woman driving the car that hit you; or you slipping of your own volition into a lovely hot bath, clutching a large…

Revolution in Progress The lead wings make us fly the tethers the tears in our eyes, shine, bring the bier, the good days are back, the good days  are here comes Stalin, there goes Ho Chi Minh, Ian Dury wouldn’t know the horrible…