Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Bob Black: The Abolition Of Work.
I guess work is done by most out of necessity, not by choice. When I have worked however I did not define myself through my work or my pay packet. Some people are lucky, today I spend time doing things I find useful and simply enjoying it, but without money perhaps we'd all be rich.
Anyway had my letter from the benefit agency, like many up and down the country, must say there timing is impeccable, so soon it looks that I might be conscripted.
All this is work where there is nothing.
Watch your thoughts, for they become words,
watch your words, for they become actions,
watch your actions, for they become habits,
watch your habits, for they become character,
watch your character, for it becomes destiny.
" The most wasted day of all is that during which we have not laughed."
- Sebastion D.N.Chamfort.
Monday, 26 December 2011
Willam Empson (27/09/06 - 15/4/84 ) - Let it go.
It is this deep blackness is the real thing strange
The more things happen to you the more you can't
Tell or remember even what they were.
The contradictions cover such a range.
The talk would talk and go far aslant
You don't want madhouse and the whole thing
there.
1949
Simon Munnery's Cluub Zarathustra 1996.
Back again
Bored of the festive T.V offerings ,so here's a clip that was piloted for Channel 4 but was never actually shown.So here's some surreal experimental comic caberet from yesterday, featuring the talents of Simon Munnery, Kevin Eldon and Stewart Lee.
I find it rather enjoyable.
Hope you enjoy it too.
Cluub Zarathustra Pilot Part 1
Club Zarathustra Part 2
Bored of the festive T.V offerings ,so here's a clip that was piloted for Channel 4 but was never actually shown.So here's some surreal experimental comic caberet from yesterday, featuring the talents of Simon Munnery, Kevin Eldon and Stewart Lee.
I find it rather enjoyable.
Hope you enjoy it too.
Cluub Zarathustra Pilot Part 1
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Follow earth's whimper.
Pentre Ifan - Pembrokeshire
David Cameron says
the U.K is a Christian Society
"and we should not be afraid to say so"
during a speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
Be grateful
depends from which basket
one has borrowed
this same country
that has abolished universal jurisdiction
that elects a government that preaches
an eye for an eye
moral collapse mirrored in politicians lies.
On this shortest day
celebrate love
the sun's rebirth
as spirits of fire,
twinkle in sky,
dance with old silver moon,
grant secret wishing prayer.
Man speaks of faith
trapped in ideological indulgence,
outside
time is stilled,
slips backwards
towards journeys end.
Quarks
act irresponsibly,
a puzzle of perception
within or without.
Take away our parachutes
and love is the key
that does not oppress
justice shared among neighbours,
and hope that convinces even the bleakest of nights
nature too has a soul, a voice.
I follow earths whimper
shining through humanities glimpses
her beauty for all to share
fix me up a murmour
and long echoes that search for peace
nature's spirit does not discriminate
and the great world rolls on interminably
in the still of the night follows diversity
uniting us together to lifes real necessities
it is possible for our minds to reel in wonder
reasons whirl along the changing seasons .
Happy Winter Solstice
" Who , out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body
understands by subtle analogies all other theories."
- Walt Witman.
Monday, 19 December 2011
A Festive Phone Call
Sometimes talking to someone at this time of the year can make a difference, it's that seasonal radiance that makes some of us shout, some of us scream.
for more infomation about this talkback go here.
Matbe greedy politicians should look inwards before targetting the more marginalised in society.
There is much hypocricy.
If your feeling strong, how about some solidarity with some people who are at moment in time are being pilloried and stigmatised.
Seasons greetings.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Thomas Evan Nicholas ( Niclas y Glais) (6/10/1879 -19/4/71) - To a Sparrow
TO A SPARROW
( Swansea Prison 1940)
Look, here's another bread-crumb for your piping,
And a piece of apple as a sweetener.
It gladdens me to hear your steady pecking;
It's good to see your cloak of grey once more.
You've travelled here, perhaps, from Pembroke's reaches,
From the gorse and heather on Y Frenni's height,
And mabe on grey wing you've trilled your measures
Above fair Ceredigion at dawn's first light.
Accept the bread: had I a drop of wine
Pressed from a distant country's sweet grape-cluster,
We could take, amid war's turbulence,
Communion, though the cell lacks cross and altar.
The bread's as holy as it needs to be,
Offering of a heart not under lock and key.
Translated from the Welsh by Joseph P.Clancy
reprinted from Twentieth Century Welsh Poems, ( Gomer,1982)
Born at Llanfyrnach. T.E Nicholas was a congregational minister and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and was a political journalist as well as a poet. He was twice imprisoned, not the first or last Welshman to be imprioned by spurious charges.'To a Sparrow ' was a poem he wrote whilst incarcenated.
Main themes of his poetry were of injustice that stemmed from his strong socialist faith.The Spanish Civil War gave rise to his verse denouncing fascism. In later life translated the internationale into Welsh.
It was whilst in prison though that he wrote some one hundred and fifty sonnets. The smallest incident would provide inspiration. Denied writing paper , he wrote on the slate in his cell, and on toilet paper. Main themse were of injustice and the power of capital. 'Cana'r Carchar' Prison Songs and 'Llygad y Drws' (referring to the eye hole of the prison door) were both collections that were written whilst he was in prison.
He continued writing into his old age, his support for left wing causes undimmed.
Ke died in Aberystwyth in 1971 aged 91.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Solidarity with Bradley Manning
It was back in March that I first wrote about the case of Bradley Manning. Back then I called the post Bradley Manning - the forgotten Man, well since then things have not improved for Bradley Mannings lot, but at least the whole world is watching now.
Bradley Manning is being detained on suspicion of blowing the whistle on the Empire's dubious activities, by allegedly disclosing embarrasing U.S State Deparment cables.
He is due for a pre-trial hearing later today. Tomorrow, but especially here in Wales ( for we consider him one of us) there will many autonomous solidarity actions for Bradley across the globe.
Tomorrow will be Bradley' 24th birthday - a day that his supporrters will gather, many will gather outside Ft Meade and U.S embassies wordwide.
Not sure however if he will get anything resembling justice and freedom soon. Barak Obama has already come out saying that he is guilty, even before a trial. To many though, he is a hero.
He spent almost 4 years at Tasker Millward Comprhensive School in Havefordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, his mother Susan still lives in Pembrokeshire. If he was ever freed and returned to Wales I am sure he would get a warm welcome.
Since his imprisonment he has been subject to punishment that has amounted to torture during his 18 month detention, which has included solitary confinement and denial of sleep and exercise, undermining his mental condition. It does not look that in the U.S.A he will get a impartial trial, the government seem to have already assumed his guilt.
Guilty or not, he is in prison for anyone who has ever protested against U.S wars of aggression and British ( and other countries ) complicity in these wars.
Whatever the outcome we will not forget him. Surely exposing war crimes cannot be a crime, his alleged leaks have subsequently acted as a jump start to freedom movements springing up worlwide. The world needs whisleblowers, because then we really will have a world without fear. You cannot hide the truth.
New song by Graham Nash
about Bradley Manning
earlier post
good links
for further infomation
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Christopher Logue (23/11/26 -02/12/11) - Some Poetry and some Jazz (R.IP)
Very late with this post, was round my mates ken's last night where we shared a few smokes and a beer, we like to talk about poetry and jazz, he was there back in the day, mid 60s on the edge of Ladbroke Grove, we talked about old black and white memories, improvised imaginings.
We listened, shared.... talked about powerful writers, we agreed that Christopher Logue had been good, a poet who succesfully merged jazz and poetry together, he had copy of red bird on tape, it was on it's last legs but still inspired. Mr Logue he had a fine voice clear, like an actor.Quite posh
His poetry like himself beyond categoriation, resolute with strong moral anger. My mate Ken said he'd written for Ken Russell another old rogue gone, acted too. His words public and dramatic, focused and confrontational,seriously mocking,above all darkly humourous, we liked that...
Also a pacifist, he too had walked on aldermaston , became a war poet but remained a man of conviction. A pornographer who saw no contadiction.
Remembered by some as 'spaghetti eating fanatic' in the film jaberwocky.
Another original gone. Silent or spoken - verse performs.
R.I.P
The song of the Outsider
This city and its citizens are green.
Quickly, those who come from far off
and enter the city, turn green.
Many have rushed here suffering dangers unnumbered,
just to be green. And othe, with contacts,
with money, with skills that are wanted,
And have brought their children, dogs and servants,
so that all they possess shall be green.
Only one dweller herein,
only one, has not become green.
How much he would give to be green!
If he could be green, why nothing would matter.
He suffers from this. He may well go Pop!
As night, beneath the huge green stars,
he goes about crushing young greenies
to ease his hatred and fears.
It is bad to do this. He knows it is bad.
And thinking of his evil deeds he sheds
deeply felt tears 'If only I was green,' he says,
'life would be like a children's game.'
To a friend in Search of Rural Seclusion
When all else fails,
Try Wales.
Rat, O Rat...
never in all my life have I seen
as hadsome a rat as you
Thank you for noticing my potatoes.
O Rat, I am not rich.
I left you a note concerning my potatoes,
but I see that I placed it too high
and you could not read it.
O Rat, consider my neighbour:
he has eight children (all of them older
and more intelligent than mine)
and if you lived in his house, Rat,
ten good Chritians
(if we include his wife)
would sing your praises nightly,
wheras in my house there are only five.
Air for the Witness of a Departure
A high wind blows
over the long white lea
lover
O lover
over the white lea.
Knows
who knows where my love is riding?
Thrush in the maybloom
high winds blow
O
over the long white lea.
Knows
who knows where my love is riding?-
riding
riding over the long white lea.
'Woke up this morning '
Woke up this morning
In the middle of winter
Salt in my coffee
Swat in my hair.
The letter said: She's dead,
We know you will miss her.
Woke up this morning
In winter in winter.
Started my answer
But failed to remember
The sound of her voice
Or the shape of her head.
Wrote I was sorry
Will be there on Thursday
found myself busy
Sent flowers instead.
Several years later
I met her while dreaming.
Fingernails bitten
Her hands in her hair,
Lovely as ever:
I have to get started!
She shouted: Get started!
And parted the air.
Woke up this morning
In the middle of winter
Salt in my coffee
Sweat in my hair
All I could think of
Was sleeping beside her
And how she wore nothing
In winter in winter.
Reprinted from
Seleced Poems - Christopher Logue
faber and faber, 1996
Parlaphone L.P Christopher Logue and Tony Kinsey ( side 1)
Guardian Obituary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/03/christopher-logue?newsfeed=true.
Friday, 9 December 2011
Mumia Abu-Jamal - Another Nameless Prostitute Says The Man is Innocent.
This date marks the anniversery of the night that Jamal was shot, arrested, beaten up and framed for the murder of a Philadelphia Police Officer called Daniel faulkner. 30 years later this political prisoner , critically acclaimed journalist ( before his imprisonment he was the President of the Philadeplhia Association of Black Journalists) and became one of the world's most recognised death row inmates awaits a decision by Federal District Court Judge William H.John Jr, on his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Hopefully he will finally get some justice and a full hearing by the federal court.
Mumia was born in 1954 in Philadelphia and was given the slave name Wesley Cook. At 14 he joined the Black Panther Party and was already showing signs of his strong articulateness and passion. Becoming known for his outspokenness and his work as a radical journalist, mostly on radio as the 'voice of the voiceless', bringing him unwanted attention from the F.B.I and the local police.
He moved on from the black Panthers and became a supporter and spokesperson for the Move Organisation founded by an African American named John Africa a black back to nature group with an anarcho primitist outlook that rejected the system. It's members and supporters faced a daily onslaught against them for a number of years, being systematically tageted for their beliefs and on numerous occasions faced violent retribution from the state.
His support of this organisation and his reporting of unpopular causes which included exposing the violence of the state as it manifests in entrenched poverty, endemic racism, police brutality and celebrating a peoples unending quest for freedom led him to lose his job as a radio journalist, so he took up taxi driving in order to provide for his family. So one could imagine that he already was a marked man.
On Dec 9th 1981 he had just dropped a client off when he heard gunshot and saw people running. One of whom was his brother a Billy Cook who ran towards him, he then he saw a police officer aiming a gun at him, he was shot and beaten, and later was charged with the murder of Officer Faulkner who had died from gunshot wounds only a feet away from where Mumia himself had fallen. Mumia himself remained in critical condition for a period of time, but his case was rushed to trial within 6 months .A trial that Amnesty International condemned as failing to meet even the most minimal standards of fairness, and that is an understatement.The trial was a farce with witnesses constantly changing statements, vital evidence being buried, proceedings markedby racism, inept prepresentation andto cap it all a bigoted and prejudiced judge. There was no way that Mumia was going to get the justice he deserved, and he was found guilty and sentence to death.
One of the key prosecution witness was a prostitute with a long history of arrests and her testimony contadicted previous statements and that of other witnesses. A man was with dreadlocks was seen running fron thescene, Mumia has dreadlocks, there are so many doubts. Several prosecution witnesses from his trial have since recanted their testimony , furthermore another individual Arnold Beverly has since subsequently confessed to killing Faulkner. Mumia has always maintained his innocence.
One reason for them finding Mumia guilty was like others he stood up against repression, for civil liberties and the government and the police simply wanted to silence an activist long known for exposing corruption.. With their attempts to silence him we can see double standards , because this is not the message they dare preach to the rest of the world. But their 30 year conspiracy of silence has not worked
In December 2001 his death sentence was oveturned but not his conviction, so still he is not free.
An online petition for President Barck Obama 'Mumia Abu- Jamal and the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty' was signed by over 20,000 people from around the world. Tomorrow let us also remember that internationally political opponents to nation states continue to face wrongful imprsonment too.
Today in Britain between 5.00 - 7.00 pm campaigners will assemble at Speakers Corner and make their way via Marble Arch and Oxford Street tothe US Embassy in London and will demand the unconditional and immediate release of Mumia Abu- Jamul. Many similar actions will take place across the globe,joining an international chorus who are actively calling for his immediate and unconditional release.
For Mumia Abu -Jamal
By Martin Espada
The board-blinded windows knew what happened;
the pavement sleepers of Philadelphia, groaning
in their ghost-infested sleep, knew what happened;
every black man blessed
with the gashed eyebrow of nightsticks
knew what happened;
even Walt Whitman knew what happened
poet a century dead, keeping vigil
from the tomb on the other side of the bridge
More than fifteen years ago,
the cataract stare of the cruiser's headlights
the impossible angle of the bullet,
the tributaries and lakes of blood,
Officer faulkner dead,suspect Mumia shot in the chest,
the nameless witnesses who saw a gunman
running away, his heart and feet thudding.
The nameless prostitute know,
hunched at the curb, their bare legs chilled.
Their faces squinted to see that night
rouged with fading bruises. Now the faces fade
Perhaps an eyewitness putrifies eyes open in a bed of soil,
or floats in the warm gulf stream of her addiction,
or hides from the faged whispers of the police
in the tomb of Walt Whitman
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
Mumia: the Panther beret, the thinking dreadlocks,
dissident words that swarmed the microphone like a hive,
sharing meals with people named Africa,
singing out their names even after the police bombardment
that charred their black bodies
so the governer has signed the death warrant.
The executioner's needle would flush the poison
down into Mumia's writing hand
so the fingers curl like a burned spider;
his calm questioning mouth would grow numb,
and everywhere radios sputter to silence, inhis memory.
The veiled prostitutes are gone,
gone to the segregated balcony of whores
But the newspaper reportsthat another nameless prostitute
says the man is innocen, that she will testify at the next hearing.
Beyond the courthouse,a multitude of witnesses chants,
pray, shouts for his prison to collapse, a shack in a hurricane.
Mumia, if the last nameless prostitute
becomes an unravelling turban of steam,
if the judges' robes become clouds of ink
swirling like octupus deception,
if the shroud becomes yourAmish quilt
if your dreadlocks are snipped during autopsy,
then drift above the ruined RCA factory
that once birthed radios
to the tomb of Walt Whitman
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
Philadelphi, PA/Camden, NJ, april 1997
Mumia Abu -Jamal Radio Broadcasts
http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm
Other Links
http://www.freemumia.com/
http://www.millions4mumia.org/
http://www.mumialegal.org/
Home page of John Africa's MoveOrganisation
http://www.onamove.com/
Link to excellent film on the case
by acclaimed director Marc Evans here
http://www.inprisonmywholelife.com/intro
" This message comes toyou from the depths of America's dungeons, from the cages in Babylon's bowelsthat are in a sense, America's own 'Taten Trakle', Wings of death where men await execution by electrocution.
As radical journalists we have another tale to tell - it is a tale not of plenty but of loss, of torture and injustice. In short it is a tale of the oppressed, but it's also a tale of brighter tomorrows, of seas aflood with life, of air sweet to the lung, of forests green, of health, of hope, of freedom and peace, for all the worlds people.
We can create islands of liberated consciousness,afloat with truth of peoples sentiments for dignity and freedom, free from the systems slur of terrorism. We can produce you progressive portraits of the possible so that a better tomorrow may dawn."
- Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Further Reading :-
Mumia Abu-Jamal , Death Blossoms: Reflections of a Prisoner of Conscience, Plough Publishing House 1997
David Lindroff - Killing Time: An investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Amnesty International - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal , Seven Stories Press.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Expect Us! - Bill Allyn
Heretic Productions brings you an extraordinary piece of Poetry by Bill Allyn
Expect us
Once we were weak, but now we stand tall.
Millions of citizens, heeding the call.
Demanding our freedom, the birthright of all.
The Arab Spring turns to the American Fall.
We're the 99, and we'll never forgive.
Well never forget how you've made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privileged now ends.
Once we were few, now we grow by the hour.
The lamb sheds its mask - the emperor cowers.
The wolf bares her teeth, the hunger devours.
The gleaming skyscrapers, the ivory towers.
We're the 99. and we'll mever forgive
We'll never forget, how you've made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The world of the moneyed and privileged now ends.
There's no "job creators" a "trickle-down" bust.
And time's running out for your greed and your lust.
You've earned no respect, and squandered our trust.
From this day forward, you must expect us!
We're the 99, and we'll never forgive.
Well never forget how you made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privilged now ends.
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Ted Hughes (17/8/30 -28/10/98) - The God
Without a god- unable to pray.
You wanted to be a writer.
Wanted to write? What was it within you
Had to tell its tale?
The story that has to be told
Is the writer's God, who calls
Out of sleep, inaudibly: 'Write'.
Write what?
Your heart, mid-Sahara, raged
In its emptiness.
Your dreams were empty.
You bowed at your desk and you wept
Over the story that refused to exist,
As over a prayer
That could not be prayed
To a non-existent God. A dead God
With a terrible voice
You were like those desert ascetics
Who fascinated you,
Parching in such a torturing
Vacuum of God
It sucked goblins out of their finger-ends,
Out of the soft motes of the sun-shafts,
Out of the blank rock face.
The gagged prayer of their sterility
Was a God
So was your panic of emptiness - a God.
You offered him verses. First
Little phials of the emptiness
Into which your panic dropped its tears
That dried and left crystalline spectra.
Crystals of salt from your sleep.
Like the dewy sweat
On some desert stones, after dawn.
Oblations to an abscence.
Little sacrifices. Soon
Your silent howl through the night
Had madeitself a moon, a fiery idol
Of your God
Your crying carried its moon
Like a woman a dead child. Like a woman
Nursing a dead child. bending to cool
Its lips with tear drops on her finger-tip.
So I nursed you, who nursed a moon
That was human but dead, withered and
Burned you like a lump of phosphorus.
Till the child stireed. It's mouth-hole stirred.
Blood oozed at your nipple,
A drip feed of blood. Our happy moment!
The little God flew up into the Elm Tree.
In your sleep, glassy eyed,
You heard its instructions. When you woke
Your hands moved. You watched them in dismay
As they made a new sacrifice .
Two handfuls of blood, your own blood,
And in that blood gobbets of me,
Wrapped in a tissue ofstory that had somehow
Slipped from you. An embryo story.
You could not explain it or who
Ate at your hands.
The little god roared at night in the orchard,
His roar half a laugh.
You fed him by day, under your hair-tent,
Over your desk, in your secret
Sirit-house, you whispered,
You drummed on your thumb with your fingers,
Shook Winthrop shells for their sea voices,
And gave me an effigy - a Salvia
Pressedin a Lutheran Bible.
Youcould not explain it. Sleep had opened.
Darkness poured from it, like perfume.
Your dreams had burst their coffin.
Blinded I struck a light.
And woke upside down in your spirit-house
Moving limbs that were not my limbs,
And telling, in a voice not my voice,
A story of which I knew nothing
Giddy
With the smoke of the fire you tended
Flames I had lit unwitting
That whitened in the oxygen jet
Of your incantaory whisper.
You fed the flames with the myrrh of you mother,
The Frankincense of your father
And your own amber and the tongues
Of fire told their tale. And suddenly
Everybody knew everything.
Your God snuffed up the fatty reek.
His roar was like a basement furnace
In your ears, thunder in the foundations.
Then you wrote in a fury, weeping,
Your joy a trance-dancer
In the smoke in the flames
'God is speaking through me,' you told me
'Don't say that,' I cried. 'Don't say that.
That is horribly unlucky!'
As I sat there with blistering eyes
Watching everything go up
In the flames of your sacrifice
That finally caught you too and you
Vanished exploding
Into the flames
Of thestory of your God
Who embraced yo
And your mummy and your daddy,
Your Aztec, Black Forest
God of the euphenism grief.
Reprinted from
New and Selected Poems 1957-94
Friday, 2 December 2011
Manchester walkabout.
when the currents of unity smell
and voices speak with optimistic roar
side by side, the young and old
shooting out branches to oppose
tory dereliction.
The hiss of collective breath
with hungry eyes
communities dreaming together
swarming with warmth
and much hospitality.
Lover bought an accordian
needs must, we lugged it through the streets
a little indulgence perhaps,
but we are not yet broken.
People grow fierce
learn how to paint the sky
committed though in debt,
we are as strong as tempered steel.
As spirits rised, canal crossed
popped into music stores
to overload senses
already worked overtime.
But long shadows are growing
tory spite charges at Winter's cold blast
disconnected themselves from the people.
They will not kill our spirit
they will not banish our care.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Idris Davies "Do you remember 1926" Poem animation
lest we forget.
Earlier post on Idris Davies here.
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/02/idris-davies-poet-of-people.html