Ariel - the massacre man - gone

Praise for the head

Qibya Sabra & Chatila Jenin

d. Ariel Sharon 2014



May I introduce

the Prime Minister,

sage of the belly,

one of us,

warrior king for the emptied land of kings

where he plants his feet,

concrete and polished facts on the ground

straddling the sea

of terrorists and little girls with satchels.





Whoever speaks evil

against that aged man

and his top of white hair,

they’ll see no evil –

their eye irises

indefinitely detained –

Nor hear evil -

Hobbling along in

eyemasks, earmuffs, mouthtapes.



The animals are eyeless in cages,

You stacked the little girls in towns

You stalled the small boys inside a wall

concrete as the wonderful world around us.

May the sky shower down

candies and cookies

over your tireless head.



*

In this way we all swore the head was

a light bulb, the day of days, continuous.

Babel head. Lit up the sky. Such gratitude.





Could not imagine the following:

Popped dead, stopped dead, propped up:

Head suddenly out on its own

in out in out, day by day.



What does the head dream?

Beyond even his one bad dream,

the tremor he immediately forgot

after the first act,

the long smear on the hands

so long ago

A thatcher (My un-tribute to)

A thatcher is someone who makes a roof

or used to, when things were quieter,

was someone who sheltered people

from the rain, when things were quieter.

A thatcher took folks from the wind

and layered the skin of a human weather.

Now a thatcher exposes the dwellers,

rips off the roof in the skinning wind,

hurls down the roof on the dwellers,

who for cover snatch at the straws

the roof-maker rains

on their rainwashed heads ruthlessly

and in their teeth and in their eyes

like a war

that the thatcher unnaturally makes

on the dwellers.     And the luckier

snatching more straw cover of the undoing

thatch, despise the unluckier, the colder ones.

so that some see but many don’t

or do see but not why, and think it

the way of a brave wise thatcher

that their fellows are icy and cold

in an inhuman country.

Published in Virago’s Let’s Pretend, 1984- even before the miners’ strike and the poll tax horror.

She was a politician who, egged on by her Tory big-business chums, swept away the post-war values of community I knew and took for granted. For all its faults, pre-Thatcher Britain had some genuine belief in equality, destroyed in the 80s by Tory governments, replaced by City greed, and we all know the result- EXCEPT that the bankers haven’t been dragged kicking and screaming back into a sense of public service. They must be, if we are ever to get something back of that lost sense of fair play which even older Tories had.

Judikaz

- Olympic vistas far away or: what's just behind Adidas?


Not too long ago I heard of the campaign Labour behind the Label? What does it do? Well, wrestling with the corporate world for fair play is what it does in fact but it doesn’t win any gold medals It works for millions of sweated workers mainly in South Asia and South East Asia who toil away making trainers etc for Adidas and its fellow multinationals. Adidas - just the fellow to advertise itself (and the Olympic Games) all over London aiming at bring in (to Adidas) millions of retail dollars. Meanwhile the meagre severance pay owed to Indonesian workers who help build the famous Olympic brand - well Adidas must have been overcome by a deep and pathetic feeling (which I don't share needless to say) that it can't afford to pay these last GIGANTIC sums. So goodbye to your Adidas old age if you happen to have relied on that. (There's a petition Labour Behind the L have started - you can help too by Googling them and signing it)

Meanwhile on to the brightest and the best: Lord (Jonathan) Coe, our sensitive Olympic boss who Can Do No Wrong, surrounding himself with these sporting CEOs --

But hey, let's end on a truly modern note of optimism.

Fact: We now boast the largest most succulent McDonalds in the world

(O come, it was only Europe, lets not hype) No but the thing is, We're all beautiful beach volley players now, and the most important thing is , we really love ending our sandy day with one of those sugar packed coldcold colas-

PS Mustn't be more, we're watching our weight, ha.

Else London the greatest city in the stratosphere will turn into the Hugest city. ha ha - via all those Arizona size steaks or whatever they sell here in Obesity Mall -



And to think, all these months I 've been slimming myself down (not hard) back in coldcold Khazakstan, and then I flew here(paying my own way democratically), and Back, Back the disastrous tonnage rolled, after just two gorg - jus nights on into The Fattest Olympics Ever.

Thanks as always to the big M!

PS with apologies to the Sun, Moon and the Stars, Galaxy...

(Why? Oh London modesty, for quietly outshining ALL.)

It's the owl's fault!

said my he-man partner when he read this blog, between the complicated he-man exercises that keep him too busy to carry things for me. Actually he's right of course. Owls stay for no man (no woman) however eager, strong,and into training. We'll be out there again, snow or no. Breeding habits don't wait for machines.

How can they so misname this most splendid owl?

The gorgeous short-eared owl should surely be called the wide-winged owl, for its wings have the widest spread in the UK, and best of all it hunts by day, coming to winter and hunt our reed beds for example round the Ouse south of Lewes. I've been watching it with frozen fingers and toes since December, trying to bring my partner(my he-man carrier of big-camera-tripod) together with the owl(beauty/low-flying grace.) Hm, without success. Soon the 4 or 5 owls here will be flying north again. I just had to manage with my small camera. This owl sat like a large striped cat against a sunlit hawthorn, turning its head (right?)round, then flew low away behind the wire fence, turning and banking slowly.

Doonesbury and Lick you Sir?

Two days ago I saw this Doonesbury strip and smiled, thinking of my 'Lick you, sir' piece in the 'The Odysseus Poems', which I hope would have got the unpleasant man in the last panel in a lethal lather, the Siren myth being about one of the most mysognistic myths ever dreamed up by a passing Homer...

(To set the scene: 'Now his audience hears how he left Circe to sail for Ithaka once more, and how on Circe’s advice, to escape the irresistible songs of the man-eating Sirens, he plugged his oarsmen’s ears with wax. . . though not his own; had the men tie him to the mast, and ordered them not to untie him. . .')

What the Sirens sang to Odysseus: Lick you, sir?

'Sorry you left her, sorry she let you
leave her? Loved you, didn’t she,
but not as much as you thought, did she?
Seemed quite cool on her big fancy jetty
of marble when you turned and waved to her.
She didn’t wave back, did she?
Stood there and then walked into her forest.
Lost your queen lady, didn’t you?
for middleaged titties and a cunt you can’t remember. Hoist on your own mast, aren’t you, sir?

Like being tied up, sir? you seem
to like getting tied up. Never mind, sir,
because we love it too.
Lick you, sir, any way you want?
Pour honey in those ears, clean out those
naughty ears? Ears can be very naughty, sir.
Everything you ever wanted, no waiting.
We’ll tie you really tightly, like you couldn’t breathe. Open you all over, ears, mouth, open our mouths
for the lot of you. Lick you, sir? any way you want.

Stuff that big fat mast down our throats?
no problem, sir, we can take it, not like some,
in the eye. We can take it, oh yes, deeper. . . bigger,
bigger, oh. . . yes. . . YES. . . any way you want we do. Hey, captain! There’s trouble brewing round
the next bend for a stiff prick with two ass ears
for an arse. Like six heads are sharper
than one. Like misery looking for misery.
Don’t say we didn’t try to save you the trouble.
Anything to please a passing fucker. Honey up yours.'

Judith Kazantzis, from THE ODYSSEUS POEMS (Waterloo 2011)

Who IS George Osbourne?

Possible ANSWERS 1.George Osbourne is a character in Vanity Fair, a destructive rich boy
who busily headed for Waterloo
and mercifully got his.
2.George Osbourne is a character in vanity fair, a destructive rich boy
busily heading our society for its waterloo
(O grant us mercifully to help George get his first....Choral Evensong. Classfied Information )

Cameron's Blindfold

Answer: The big society

(more easypeasy puzzles soon)

Irving Goes to Gaza 2

irving is now in N Africa, in Fez, Morocco, with many others, anything up to 100 drivers for something like 50 vehicles, packed with medical supplies, see my last blog. He says the shepherds along the roads are waving, everyone waving them on. You can see the link to his journey blog, last one from Algeciras waiting for the ferry to Morocco. Problem with sending out from his mobile so sez he's waiting to get to an internet cafe to send the next one. Here's his link: www.wordconvoy.blogspot.com

irving goes to Gaza 1

My dear friend Irving Weinman great American novelist now on the way co-driving in a long convoy from Britain to beseiged Gaza. London to Rafah gate. Taking medical supplies and school stuff and toys for the kids. He's sitting behind a giraffe and a zebra - they're sitting on the dashboard. Good blog, two posts so far, here's his blog: www.wordconvoy.blogspot.com