Sakineh Astiani; EMERGENCY, THERE ARE 24 HRS TO GET KEY POWERS TO TAKE EMERGENCY ACTION TO STOP HER EXECUTION.

Take action to try stop her execution here.



http://www.avaaz.org/en/24h_to_save_sakineh/?v1

Britons Never Shall be Slaves. - Helen Heslop.

Henry Drake still at school sees
His father, put away for
Misbehaviour, wave goodbye.
He cries.

A teenager before the
Word is born, the Army claims
Him for the country's fight for
Freedom.

Benghazi - weather sunny,
Plenty grub; that's new. Payment
Too. Peace intervenes; home to
Blighty.

Better off by one new suit
He's free to find a job, low
Pay, and a girlfriend, Ann, keen
To save.

Romance falls through, but there's his
Cycling, gardening, fishing,
Same boring job, same low wage,
But free,

At forty-four Henry Drake
Is made redundant. 'Sorry. . . .
Years. . . cut backs, but we . . . thanks for. . . '
He's free

To care for his mother, ailing
Fast. He does his nest; she dies
At eighty-two, leaving him
Free to

Stare awhile, at least he's hept
Some hair; he'll join . . . make new . . .
But Englishmen of Henry's
Station

Unprivileged, no decent
Education, find themselves
Ditched by a freedom loving
Nation.

REPRINTED FROM :-

SING FREEDOM, ed Judith Nicholls

Faber and Faber, Published with assistance of Amnesty International, 1991.

Sahmain greetings. ( For tomorrow)

Ah October the 31st, with or without foundation, the old superstitions linger on in many hearts and many places.
Will they, ever fade away and die completely?
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.
Do you still cross your fingers, do you still believe in magic, touch wood, just in case! Dream today in colour, listen to the wild winds blow. Time was when children marvelled behind each fast-shut door. Nights drawing in again,time flies, listen out, take a peep over the ledge......
Scan the likely paths of green, leave behind the alleys, cast your shadows, soar to the moon and back, draw eyes a gaze with mystery.
Bobbing and a weaving, we are the branches, we are the roots, may fatigue and loneliness be overcome, tonight we sing, spin through a whirling dance.
Listen to the drum beat
as spirits awake.
Imagine tomorrow
a world full of equality
freedom and justice.
Burn bright
blessed be.

THE TIM BOBBIN INN: Machine Breakers in Council. - Sir James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth (1804 -1877)

Just got back from the North of England, thought I'd post this little number, you can hear the rich dialect flowing through the prose. We should never forget our past. Remembering , remembering.


A BRIGHT light gleamed from the windows of the ground floor. Crossing the threshold, this light was seen to come chiefly from a large coal fire, blazing in the ample grate of the room which served as kitchen, bar, and place of reception for guests. High-backed wooden settles screened the centre of this room from the door, and occupied two sides of it. In the middle was a plain deal table, and on this glasses of beer, and of spirits and water, with some rough hunches of bread and oatcake. Overhead was a frame, the strings of which were covered with the round, flat, thin flakes of oatcake which had dried there. From the hooks in the ceiling hung hams and flitches of bacon. The settles were filled with men mostly smoking from long clay pipes; and spittoons, filled with sawdust, lay beside each on the sanded floor....
All seemed weary and worn. "Oi'n allays been agen this rowing and rioting as brings t'sodgers on us poor wavers," said Silas. "What t'farreps have we to do in feyghting wi t'red coats? Connut we creep into t'mills at neet, and smash o't' iron wavers as robs eawr childer of bread? A bit of a tenpenny nail stuck in t'reet pleck in a machine, ull break it o' to nowt, when th'ingin gets agate. Yo moit crack 'em o', when th'ingin starts i' t'morn, wi' their own steeam. What's t'use o' lettin t'sodgers get a chance at us?"
"Nay , lads , let's do nowt underhand. We'dn done a pratty day or two 's wark afore t'sodgers geet at us. There's summut righteos i'open wrath, for clemming wives and childer, but we're noan theives to cloak what we done i' t'dark... What says ta, Jonah?"
"Oim o' thy mind, Mark. There's nobbut two uses in what we'n done. If these machines can foind wark for o' onus, there mun be moor on 'em by a deal, and wen towd t'meausters at we winnt clem. But if they connut foind wark for ten times as mony machines an' steam looms as they now han, then, lads, we'n gien 'em notice to quit. They'n getten t'brass and t'edication, an' we'n nother brass nor larning, but we'n shown 'em as we'n Lancashire pluck. We're not t'lads to dee in t'ditch, 'bout kicking. But I'm noan clear which is reet --- mo steam looms, or ten times as mony iron-wavers."
"Then why smash them as tha' has helped to do?" asked Silas. "To keep t'pot boiling at whoam till t'measters han fun out t'reet gate. We mun keep t'hand loom jingling at whoam an we han nowt but oatmale, and praties, and buttermilk. t'pig, and t'garden stuff. After this smash we'st ha'wark ' bout flittin' into t'towns, and by-and-by we'st get mills all o'er t'forests."

Personally speaking, resistance is necessity.

James Broughton (10/11/13 -17/5/99 ) Excerpt from SHAMAN PSALM

Listen Brothers
The alarms are on fire
The oracles are strangled
Here the pious vultures
condemning your existence
Hear the greedy warheads
calling for your death
Quick while there's time
Take heed Take heart
Claim your innocence
Proclaim your fellowship
Reach to each other
Connect one another
and hold

Rescue your lifeline
Defy the destroyers
Defy the fat vandals
They cry for a nation
of castrated bigots
They promise a reward
of disaster and shame
Deny them Deny them
Quick while there's hope
Renovate man
Insist on your brotherhood
Inist on humanity
Love one another
and live


Extracted from:- SHAMAN PSALM,1981. Another relevant poem for our times.




THE OMEGA NEBULA.

Richard Dadd Fairy Feller Master Stroke

HENRIK IBSEN once said "This longing to commit a madness stays with us throughout our lives.Who has not ,when standing with someone by an abyss or high up on a tower,had a sudden impulse to push the other over.And how is it that we hurt those we love although we know that remorse will follow,Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves. Unfortunately the british visionary artist RICHARD DADD (1817 1886) succumbed to his own internal delusions and was permanently insititutionalized after killing his dad.He spent his days in the Royal Betlem hospital a k a BEDLAM,where he at least produced an outstanding body of work.So outside the perimeters some people basically go mad.A lot more actually come through,recover and survive ,not all ,though, but quite a lot.In literature and in music one finds a long tradition of writers creating writing out of the extremes of mental distress,in isolation and in groups,lets see William S burroughs,Alexander Trocchi, lets face it alot of THE BEATS ,the surrealists,Robert Calvert,Syd Barrett,T s Elliot, John Clare,Peter Reading,Sylvia Plath,NIck Drake,Ezra Pound, etc etc.All im really saying there is power in words and imaginations that can be witty,brittle,serene,remote and tortured.That can also have the continuing power to transform,inspire and challenge. Hey Ho singing to stay alive,Down at the edge of lonely street with a pink moon in their eyes..............

The MIND Day Centre - Paul Kean ( b.1958)

I fell myself learning from the old lags
Bandura et al, imitative learning.
It's quite a skill, sitting in a chair, staring into space,
I did try reading a book, but got discussed,
when I laughed reading it
heard I was a manic depressive.
No one laughs at the MIND day centre.
Bought a few cans in, got called an alcoholic,
That's definitely against the rules,
the rules they supposedly 'Don' t Have'
In the end go to the local pub
Guy there says 'I went in there they woudn't
let me out'
So, MIND doesn't have labels
Pull the other one, saddens me,
I don't want to learn to be more mentally ill
when I say that, the professional says
'You should hear yourself'
and again uses the language of my oppression
to oppress me She even cynically uses' user rights'
To take away mine



and again we are under attack.

Emergency Verse.

Excellent anthology out at moment collecting over a 160 poems in defence of the Welfare State and against this bloody governments imminent cuts.
It is alive and refreshing and has to be the political anthology of 2010. We are in a state of emergency, these poems can be used as a remedy or as tools of resistance when fighting back.
I believe in the power of poetry and the power of these oncoming cuts, so use these words as ammunition. Fight the Cuts.

http://www.therecusant.org.uk/#emergency-verse/4543558626

Robert Wyatt and Gilad Atzmon in Haaretz.

Haaretz published yesterday a massive interview with Mr Robert Wyatt and Gilad Atzmon ito coincide with their latest collaboration ' for the ghost within' . A very enlightening and most informative interview. An Israeli paper that does not censor. With the greatest of respect to the paper it allows Gilad to say what he says, and what he says is pretty uncompromising and powerful. Their new album by all accounts is quite beautiful, a mixture of Wyatt's heartfelt contemplations and Atzmons brilliant dazzling muscianship. Oh can you guess, am bit of a fan. Read the interview in full here.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/haunted-by-ghosts-1.319263

John Brandi (5/11/43) -OUR GEOGRAPHY IS HEARTBEAT.

We all hold
to some territory.
The merchant
makes his salad with money.
A seamstress begins
at the fine-line stitch of time.
The astronaut remembers
the Red Sea
with the ultra-violet eye
of the bee.
The director cuts apart
geography on his human meatboard.
The poet begins
inside his mother
riding an iconclast raft
with villages and trees
igniting themselves
along the edge
of th sea.

We all begin
as mirrors, naked
with bodies once solar
begetting form.
The priest wears a robe.
The judge wears a robe.
The scholar graduates in a robe.
All remember the alphabet
differently.
All connect the swan
with a proverb or a symbol
Or regard the stars
with possibilities.
And look to the craftsman
for a sewing bobbin
or a shoelace.

We all hold
to some territory.
The evangelist eats out
on donations sent to convert
pagans. The orphan rides
a subway into black paradise, free.
The dragonfly holds 10,000
worlds in its fine topaz blink.
And the fortune-teller
looks through amber
to discover the face of
an assasin.

We all sit down
and rise inside a dream,
asking questions
about our situation, scratching
parts of the body
at intersections, perplexed
with changing signals
& semaphores
that announce no train.
We all have
ridden a tractor or
a subway, arranged our hair
in an automobile,
or opened a briefcase
in an airplane.

Our geography
is heartbeat, and a second
hand swings through
the flesh, like a road
pretending no end
while outside the self
lives another one
of us, who conducts the world
with a spiral wand
and carries into us
the charts and maps, the earth
and particles of air that
combine to breed water,
fire, hate, love
passing storms and gates
that can be locked
or unlocked, forever
among us all.


FROM :- Heartbeat Geography, Selected and Uncollected poems, White Pine, 1995.