NO PASARAN! 75th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.

Today sees the 75th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.  In 1931 with the proclamation of a Republic a Socialist-Republican Government was formed in Spain, which had the support of many revolutionary forces active in Spain.It had a commitment to the seperation of the church and the state, and a commitment to international peace, modern systems of education, land reform, and more equal roles for both men and women. By 1936 the Spanish Republic had recently been revived by the election of a moderately liberal government after 5 years of tension and retrenchment. A new popular front alliance of all anti-fascist parties had swept the country the previous year. However on the night of 18th July , 1936 the army mutinied with their generals against the people. They bought in foreign legionairres and colonial troops and under General Franco proclaimed a military takeover. A bitter struggle had begun.
Executions without trial were common place, Franco had the support of the aristocracy,the army, the landlords, the bankers, and the Church hierararchy and a clique of corrupt politicians went over to the conspirators the rest backed the Republic.The left wing of the popular front was determined to resist the Generals and resolved to distribute arms and weapons to newly formed militias. By the morning of 19th July truckloads of rifles from  the Ministry of War were on their way to the headquarters of the Socialist and Anarchist trade unions for distribution to their members. A few weeks later  a government emerged more than capable of defending the Republic against the Generals. It was the first Republican Government to have full Socialist, Communist and Anarchist support. However Franco had both Italian and German fascist support, with their finance and intervention. The fascists defended a common view of the past, while the republican coalition though, had widely different visions of the future.
 About 300 people volunteered from Wales against the tyranny of fascism, with 35 of whom not returning home but the important historical truth is the international flavour of those who volunteered to fight in this brutal war. A great idealistic cause of the first half of the twentieth century, that has been of great interest to me over the years. Two local people from my neck of the woods went to serve Arthur Morris and a Percy Jones. More infomation here http://irelandscw.com/docs-WelshMorris , I have yet to see a monument erected to them I believe perhaps one daytheir should be one. Over 40,000 other selfless men and women fought side by side for the ideas of liberty and social justice, solidarity and mutual aid from 53 different nationalities.Rallying to the republican cause. Alongside the war millions of workers collectiveised the land and took over industry to pursue their vision of a new society. Fighting valiantly against the reactionary medieval ideology that was Francoism, they tried to stop fascism in their tracks. Theirnummber was severely outnumbered by Franco's forces.
For many it was not just a war to defeat the fascists it was the beginning of a new society ,completely. A revolution in fact, unfortunately revolutions do not succeed when the people are divided.  Their are many lessons to be learnt from this struggle, a struggle that continues to do this day.
The spectre of fascism still haunts and universal equality has not been achieved.
We should not forget the international brigaders who preceded us, and we must continue to resist oppressive forces, with our shout of no pasaran.
                                   
                                    Guernica - Picasso

The Spanish Civil War was a symbol become reality, it was forged on the class struggle, also the struggle of the artists against tyranny( did not the fascists brutally murder Lorca).
It caught the poet's imagination too. Many subsequently joining the International Brigade. Many were determined to fight for Spain, to the inernational cause of solidarity. Unfortunately as the war progressed many became confused and dissullusioned by certain divisions that had begun to set in. Communists  became more intent on destroying Anarchists and Trotskyists instead of standing together against the fascists. A problem that continues to this day with members of the left fighting one another instead of our common enemies. We have a lot of lessons to learn. Complex ideas were fiercely fought but all who stood up against fascism were heroic and worthy of respect, their cause in my opinion just , a flame that will never die, sharing principles of brotherhood of man  and a sense of justice, driven by  political and humanitarian convictions.
It was not however just a poet's war, it was fought on the most part by ordinary people, for the people. Many courageous brigadeers died, and their were many tales of atrocities and heroism on this cultural battlefield where opposing notions were violently played out. Sincerely and bravely translating their faith into works, ready to endure death in their passionate unswaying convictions.
The Welsh volunteers in particular raised the morale of their comrades, by their unity, their strength, their tenacity and in particular their singing, with the miners amongst them put to good use with their tunnelling skills.
By 1938, their were 600,000 dead, 100,000 executed, 250,000 people imprisoned, many towns destoyed .
Thee war ended in March 1939 when Franco's forces finally captured Madrid. Why oh why international governments had not intervened earlier to help the republic side I don't know. Perversely after the Second World War after both Hitler and Mussolini were defeated, Franco was allowed to continue his totalitarian role in Spain, and for years to come his brutal force held sway and continued to destroy lives, dissent was brutally suppressed with many thousands of voices silenced , and  forced into exile , untill Franco's  death in 1975.
Many, many people died in their struggle for a better world,we must never forget, no pasaran, another world is not only possible it is inevitable, we must remain in solidarity with all those who believe in freedom, and social justice.
the following are a selection of poems that emerged from this conflict. Powerful and still inspiring.
 

For the Fallen -W.B. Keal

Brave sons of liberty, fallen in battle,
Fallen that we, their successors, might live,
Bravely they faced the machine-gunner's rattle,
Giving so bravely all they'd to give.

Hurriedly, carelessly, rudely,we buried them,
Buried them quickly, beneath the brown soil.
Hurriedly, quickly, we gave them our blessing,
Then we returned to our heart-breaking toil.

Theirs wasno splendour, the fallen in action;
Theirs was no pomp, neither glory nor show,
They were the cream of the Communist fraction
We are the reapers, but they went to sow.

Shall we forget them who never forget us,
Defending theworkers, while fighting in Spain?
Shall we stay passive while Fascism threatens us?
Shall their great effort be made all in vain?

Never forget them, the lessons they taught us,
Think of their travail, their suffering, pain!
Raise the Red Standard and help support us,
Lest we seein England what happened in Spain.

To the Mothers of the Dead Militia - Pablo Neruda

They have not died!
they stand upright in the midst of the gunpowder,
they live, burning as brands there.

In the copper-coloured prairie
their pure shadows have come together
like a curtain of armoured wind,
a barrier colour of fury
like that same invisible beast of sky.

Mothers, they are standing amidst the corn
as tall as the profundity of noon
that possesses the giant plains.

They area peal of sombre voices
calling for victory through the shapes of murdered steel.

Sisters as close as
the dust fallen,
hearts that have been broken
keep faith in your dead -
they are not roots only
beneath stones dyed in blood,
not only poor fallen bones
at work now in the finality of earth,
for their mouths are shaping the dry powder ready for action,
they attack in waves of iron,
in their clenched fists lies death's own contradiction.

See, from so many bodies an invincible life rises!
mothers, sons,banners,
in one single being as living as life;
one face made of all the slain eyes is guard in the darkness
with a sword that is strengthened and tempered with human
   hope.

Cast aside your mourning veils, join all of your tears
tillthey transmute into metal-
so that we may strike day and night,
so that we may hammer day and night,
so that we may spit dorth day and night,
till the portals of hatred be overthrown.

I have not forgotten your tragedies
and your sons, they are known to me,
and if I have pride in their deaths
in their lives, too, I have pride.
Their smiles
are like flashes in the murk of the workshops,
and in the underground
every day their feet ring by mine.
I have seen
amongst the oranges ofLevante
and the fishing-nets of the south,
in the ink of the printshops
and the masonry of the buildings,
I have seen
the flame of their hearts fashioned out of fire and valour.

And, as in your hearts, mothers,
in mine there is so much od death and mourning
that it seems like a forest flooded
with the blood that quenched their smiles;
to it come the furious snows of sleeplessness,
the wrenching solitude of the dys.

But beyond your curse on the hyenas
out of Africa, blood-parched, baying their foul cries,
beyond wrath and contempt, beyond tears,
Oothers, transpierced by anquish and death,
look into the heart of the new day that is dawning
and know that your dead smile up at you from the earth,
raising their clenched fists above the corn, there, look, they are
    standing!

Translated  from the Spanish by  Nancy Cunard. 

T.E. Nicholas -  In Rememberance of a Son of Wales ( Who Fel in Spain)

Amid the roar of guns that split the air,
   Faint moaning reached him from a tortured field;
He followed to a city passing fair,
   His soul aflame, his flesh a living shield.
There death-charged missiles blazed a trail of woe,
   Leaving each shattered hearth a vain defence
While flocks of iron eagles, swooping low,
   Clawed out the life of cradled innocence.
Far from the hills he loved, he faced the night,
   Bearing, for freedon's sake, an alien yoke;
He fell exalting brotherhood and right,
   His bleeding visage scorched by fire and smoke;
E'en as the sweetest note is born of pain,
So shall the song of songs be born in Spain.

Guernica - A.S Knowland

Irun-Badajoz-Malaga-and then Guernica

So that te swastika and the eagle
might spting from the blood-red soil,
bombs were sown into the earth at Geurnica,
whose only harvest was a calculated slaughter,
Lest freedom should wave between the grasses
and the corn its proud emblem, or love
be allowed to tread its native fields,
Fascism was sent to destroy the innocent,
and, goose-stepping to the exaggerated waving
of the two-faced flag, to save Spain.

But though the soil be saturated with blood
as a very efficient fertilzer, the furrow
of the ghastly Fasces shall remain barren.
The planted swastika, he eagle grafted
on natural stock shall wither and remain sere;
for no uniformed force shall marshall the sap
thrilling to thrust buds into blossoms, or quicken
the dead ends of the blighted branches;
but the soli shall be set against an alien crop
and the seed be blasted in the planting

But strength lies in the strength of the roots.
They shall not pass to ruin Spain!

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION - Gonzalez Tunon

The bullfighters are monarchists,
The monks are preachers of fascism.
And the miners of the Asturias?
Long live the revolution!

My grandfather came from Mieres;
His wife from Pola de Siero.
The capital city of my blood
Must surely be called Oviedo!

The Moors are outside Oviedo.
Oviedo they'll never take
Though they'll kill all the Spaniards and threaten
Their wives with murder and rape!

The Regulars are bathing
In the Covandonga flood.
The lords swim at Majorca,
While the miners swim in blood.

In October there are no fiestas
Except those of the season.
But October only means to us
'LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!'

translated from the Spanish by A.L. Lloyd

The Hero- Richard Church

I could tell you of a young man
Blown with heroism into Spain.
He had a knapsack of philosophy,
And as he went he scatterred thesmall grain
Of his few songs under the dangerous sky.

A girl, grown fond, thought him too young to die.
She put the memory of teir secret joy
Behind her heart, and turned to public deeds,
Neglecting the earth he trod, and his scattered seeds.

But soon she was brought to child-bed, with a boy
Smiling up at her as his father had smiled.
And thankfully she saw that his plump back
Carried no philososopic haversack.
She saw, but only for his mother's breast
That being so, she found she could forgive
The man who died so that a dream might live,
And faith with prudence remain unreconciled.

POEMS REPRINTED FROM
EXCELLENT ANTHOLOGY :-
The penguin Book of
Spanish Civil War Verse
Edited by Valentine Cunningham
1980

( their are so many lovely poems in this collection,
essential reading for anyone interested in this period)

Selection of Spanish

Selection of Spanish Civil War Songs.

There have been many , many books written on the
Spanish Civil War, here are some I would strongly
reccommend for further perusal.

The Spanish Civil War - Hugh Thomas ( Penguin) 1983.
They shall not Pass ( the Spanish people at war 1936-9) -Richard Kirch (wayland publications 1974).
Lessons of the Spanish Revolution -Vernon Richards (freedom press 1972).
Miners against fascism -Wales and the Spanish Civil War - Hywel Francis
( Lawrence and Wishart )1984.
We Live -Lewis Jones ( library of Wales). incidentally this is one of my favourite books.

John Dee - It's all done by mirrors. ( a little bit of magic)

John Dee was a noted Welsh mathematician, geographer, occultist, astronomer. astrologer and advisor to the Queen.He was one of the most fascinating characters of the Elizabethan period. The events of his life are filled with science, experiments, astrology and mathematics which he aligned with magic, the supernatural and alchemy.

Born in London on July 13th 1527, to a welsh father, his was an age of illusion and supernatural conviction. He was fascinated by the 'Dark Side'. His name, strangely enough, even reflects the life he would lead. The surname 'Dee' derives from the Welsh Celtic word 'du' which means black.

He went to St John's College. Cambridge at the age of 15 in 1542 where he developed a formidable reputation for his burning intelligence and as some kind of magician. He seemed possessed by a thirst for knowledge, driven by an otherworldly sense, with a taste for theatrics that were driven on by divine schemes, accompanied by alchemical secrets that coursed through his bloodstream.

Dee was a brilliant scholar. Interested in Mathematics, physics and astrology which he studied at Cambridge and in Europe. The Elizabethan era was the age of the Renaissance and new thinking and ideas. It was also the age of Nostradamus, Marsilio Ficino and Trithemius and the Renaissance fusion of Christianity, Hermetic Philosophy and its attendant sciences of magic, astrology and alchemy. His interest in science and mathematics led John Dee to a particular interest in astrology and all of its associated supernatural subjects. 

John Dee was well travelled and was obsessive in collecting books and manuscripts. He collected so many books that he created the greatest personal library in England, which he housed at his mother's residence at Mortlake, and was considered one of the finest in Europe. He also amassed a vast array of musical instruments from around the globe which he was more than capable of playing.John Dee and his extensive library attracted visits from the foremost scholars in England. 

Also a notable cartographer, Dee drew maps and routes (especially of the North Sea and across the Atlantic). It’s said that Dee possessed an impressive collection of maps, globes, and navigational devices. Dee, mystic that he was, believed that divine power could be exercised through these mathematics which he understood as a spiritual discipline During his early travels to Europe he was associated with the great cartographer Gerardus Mercator. 

It was to the  world of the occult that  he became engrossed and he came to believe himself in communication with angels and spirits, a  gentle, unsuspicious man, dressing and looking the part of a magus, wearing a long gown with a long beard as white as milk.
He became something of an expert on various occult disciplines, including alchemy and hermetic philosophy and engaged in the discipline of scrying.
Because of what people thought he knew he was courted by royalty, first by Queen Mary, which led to difficulties because he was charged with treason and swiftly thrown into jail,this could have been the end of his career, lucky for him however Mary passed away and her sister Elizabeth looked upon him more favourably, and he became her sort of errand boy, travelling on many occasions to the continent on her behalf, becoming in the end  a kind of personal consultant to her. He was also to have engaged on a number of spying activities on her behalf, an all seeing eye and all that.  It has been said that he invented British imperialism , because through his visionary experiences he found reasons for England's territorial claims on the New World and hence it's colonisation. He certainly perpetrated the Madoc myth, a story of a Welsh Prince who apparently discovered America in 1170 and together with other Welsh people settled with Native Americans, it was said that their were red indians who spoke Welsh, it is a story I would love to believe.
It must be said though that most of his magic seemed benevolent and philanthropic, and he did not seem to use his skills for personal advancement or to harm anyone with his powers, devoting himself to his dreams and prophecies, and a quest to find the secret of the Philosophers Stone and the secret of divining buried treasure, spending long hours crystal gazing. looking for future's glimpse to reveal themselves to him. In his time quite powerful,  popular too, pious but devoted. Feeding the intellectual streams of Elizabethan England. An active mind ,perhaps too busy for simple serene contemplation .

He has been painted as a deluded man who looked to the stars for guidance, dabbled in alchemy and communed with angels. But an alternative view is that he was one of the most brilliant men of the Renaissance, whose contribution has been muddied by centuries of slander. He was a polymath, engaged with the most cutting-edge science of his day, which at the time was intertwined with magic and the occult.

In 1564 he wrote the hermetic text Monas Hieroqlytica ( the Hicroglypic Moda,) an exhaustive mystical tract bringing together a myriad of strands that he was interested in, unifying numerology, mysticism and textual Qabalah using symbolist language and revelatory insight, and within it lay foundations for the spiritual ideas of alchemy. He was apparently held in high regard, and was courted by various luminaries.
John Dee's intellectual curiosity was at all times enormous, and there is little doubt that the occult interested him more than anything else, in spite of his great learning in other directions. However he was not a witch, and he bitterly resented his own all too firmly established reputation as a magician. In the Preface which he wrote to Henry Billingsley's translation of the Euchid's Elements in 1571, he complained of the injustice he suffered from those who think of him as 'a companion of Hellhounds, and a caller and a conjurer of wicked and damned spirits'. 
He married twice and had 8 children. Details of his first marriage are not readily available, but it is certain that in 1578 he married the 23 year old Jane Fromond when he was 51.

On March 10th 1582, he was visited by an irishman called Edward Kelley who seemed in awe of his power and wanted to learn more, unfortunately Kelley was a forger and coiner who had a bad reputation as a confidence trickster. Somehow Dee fell for his charms and had soon moved into Dee's house and during this period all manners of strange manifestations occurred, contacting spirits, with Kelley soon beginning to see himself as the master and claiming to have the gift of second sight. Together they developed a communication system from divine sources and established a dialogue with angels through  language called 'Enocha'.   Kelley himself was a fast learner. They summoned up a spirit who appeared and announced its name as Uriel, given directions for the invocation of other spirits. Perhaps under the influence of Kelley, Uriel urged Dee to engage Kelley as his regular scryer and telling him that him and Kelley should always work together. Any money that Dee made at this time wound up in the lining of Kelley's pockets. They travelled together to Europe and had a number of mystical adventures together. Whilst at Glastonbury Kelly was lucky enough to unearth a supply of the philosophers stone but this was of very dubious authenticity, whereas their was something of the genuine about Dee, for me I feel that Kelley was something of a charlatan.
Kelley was  a skilled manipulator, that Dee trusted ,and in April 1587 in Bohemia, Kelley saw in the crystal a naked woman who directed that in future the scryer and his master should have their wives in common. Dee at first could not accept this, but Kelley  pushed and pushed, telling Dee that they had to obey the command of the spirit, and in the end Dee succumbed to Kelley's will.
Dee himself wrote : ' On Sunday the third of May, Anno 1587, I , John Dee, Edward Kelley, and our two wives ( Jane Dee and Joan Kelley), covenated with God, and subscribed the same, for insoluble and inviable unities, charity and friendship keeping between us four; and all things between us to be common, as God by sundry means willed us to do.'
Their were probably many strange sexual encounters, but inevitably I suppose it did not work out, they quarelled constantly. In 1588 Kelley left for Prague where he ended up in prison, released after 4 years he was imprisoned again and was killed attempting to escape.  
Dee returned to England in 1589 to Mortlake and was received by the Queen at Richmond, and awarded him a pension of £200 a year that was her debt to him. Unfortunately his library had been ranshacked and lay in ruins and many of his beloved musical instruments were stolen. He spent his final days with his influence on the wain, but was given the wardenship of Manchester College.In 1604, he was evidently once again troubled by his own reputation for sorcery, or feared persecution, in view of the new Witchcraft Act then being debated in Parliament. He petitioned King James to have him 'tryed and cleared of that horrible and damnable, and to him the most grevious and damnable slander... that he is, or hath been a conjurer or caller or invocator of devels'. The King did not grant him his request, but did not bother him in any way.
He died peacefully, though sadly in poverty, though at the ripe old age of 82, four years later at Mortlake. His life had  long flown, but  he was still writing , still chasing his dreams. 
By then  the age of magic  and sorcery was passing too, but I for one am still dazzled and grateful for his story. Every passionate assertion calls forth some contradiction and every firmly-held creed knows at least some doubters and some sceptics.
Through time, he was not forgotten, Shakespeare's character Prospero was based on him, and he still flickers through the centuries in  many a fine book,and he is currently back in vogue due to Damon Albarn's English opera ' Doctor Dee.'His business as a wise man, still incredulous to this day. Tempests still hurled, and on the window sills , oceans of treachery.So follow your own dreams, your own paths, if you can!
Be careful who you mix with, sometimes destiny's forecast is everlasting.
Create your own way, with your own maps and scattered illusions. You only have one chance.

Further Reading:-

The Private Diary of John Dee - John Dee, Bastion Books.

The Queens Conjurer : the science and magic of Doctor Dee - Benjamin Woolley

The House of Doctor Dee - Peter Ackroyd. 

Oh incidentally first became aware of Dee, in the film Jubilee (1977) - Derek Jarman, where Queen Elizabeth is magically transported through time by Dee ( Richard O Brien)

and as for borrowing, it was the great Alan Moore, whose idea that Mr Gorillaz man inevitably pinched.


Richard O Brien as John Dee in Jubilee (1977)

On a Portrait of John Dee - Robert Minhinnick

( Spy, Astrologer, Mathematician.)

This black canvas n Elizabethan night.
Only the dimmed  lantern of the face,
That hand holding  a testament
Obstruct the gloom. Appropriate

The artis'ts doubt. How to decipher
code of this man's life, the lean
Courtier, bittern-necked, in corset of stiff lace,
His slightest thread of smile itself

A wordless cryptogram? Could oils preserve
A pale astrologer, whose superstitious
Scholarship transferred the evenings bestiary
Of stars to royal horoscopes, whose harmless

Chess became a skill deployed round living kings.
Such brilliant paradox must fascinate.
This squalid agent of a vicious state
Grew older, found retirement, and poses here

Respectable and rich. Profound John Dee
Your life suggests the real, essential irony
Our flatter lives conceal. You, modernist,
A riddle to our reasoning, our medieval mind.

Poetry Wales , Winter 1977, Volume 13 No.3

Olde England has vanished, but the hidden mysteries of the arcane still flow. 

Once upon a time in Rafah

A cartoon strip on Israel violence and depicting the response of a Palestinian child to the racist remarks of an Israeli kid has won the U.S best political Cartoon award.
The award was given to freelance political cartoonist Carlos Latuff. His work deals with a number of themes including anti-globalization and ant-capitalism. He himself has described his own work as controversial.
In the cartoon the Israeli child addresses rhe Palestinian child saying ' My father told me that you Arabs are evil terrorist animals. In response the Palestinian child says ' My father told me nothing, he was murdered by yours. Simple but effective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Latuff

The most important pun in the English language - Christopher Ricks.

Some words on truth

As with  sense, so with lie  the importance of a pun must be in the first place a matter of the enduring and central matters which it encompasses. Lies are important irrespective of any pun that may visit them. For one thing, the telling of the truth is necessary to those social and cultural agreements without which there cannot be a society or a culture. Even the devils know this, for as Sir Thomas Browne said ' so also in \moral verities, although they decieve us,  they lie not unto each other; as well understanding that all community is continued by Truth, and that of Hell cannot exist without it.'  For another thing, telling the truth is a necessary condition for the existence of a language at all. Which is why in the language - indeed, in most of all languages, one may guess - there is no truth verb that is the counterpart to the verb to lie. (And there are, from similar causes or with similar effects, no puns on true and truth that amount to anything.) You cannot truth , a fact which both makes the telling of a truth a less glib matter than lying ('the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'), and also brings out the speaking has to be posited on a presumption of the speaking of the truth. Even if it were not accepted that words about words all have a special force, though not necessarily a grater force than other words ( for this claim might be merely a literary critic's professional predilection), it is nevertheless the case that lie  has the special potency of immediate paradoxiical properties, since it strikes at the roots of language and may strike, self-incrimiinattingly, at itself. The importance of lying therefore ranges from all those daily falsehoods in the orinary world to such absract but intense considerations  of language, society, and philosophy. In 1970 there was published a book wholly devotted to the paradox of the liar.
Yet the importance of the phenomenem oflying is necessary but not sufficient condition of any claimed importance for the pun on lie and lying. Then there are the linguistic pressures on the word lie  which themselves make the word a creator of pressure. There is, first, a depoulation around lie which gives it the potency of salience. For instance, lie calls up no manifest etymolology for us; as ashort and simple Old English word, it seems - as does the word truth - to be a root concept behind or below which we cannot penetrate. ( The contrast would be with the words veracity  and mendacity  which sends our toughts abroad, in both senses.) Next there is the fact that there are no profound or memorable proverbs about lies or truth, so that the words themselves have to muster all the energy of the phenomena. A comparable depopulation, lending prominence and salience to lie and truth, is that by which a great many lie and truth terms have fallen out of the language, as if by some evolutionary concentration upon the survival of the fittest words. Middle English gab, to lie , survives only in its weakened child, gabble; leasing has gone as has the plural lyings;  the adjective lie ( from Old English  lyze, lying); various tansistive and quasi-transistive uses of to lie (OED 3 and 4 ); and 'to give the lieto' ( accuse of lyiing). You can no longer 'make a lie', you can only tell it; you can now lie only about, not - as you can only tell it; you can now lie only about, not - as you once could - of, on, or upon (OED 1b).
Again, there is the salience given by the marked absence of synonyms for lie; all we have is either ephemeral or infantile slang (bounce, crammer, whopper, fib - to cite Roget's Thesarus ) or eupehemisms: falsehood and untruth, neither of which strictly means lie and both of which therefore can on occasions have the special offence of a euphemism.
.... The final linguistic consideration is one of the many asymmetries between lie and truth,  one which lends to lie ( and to its pun) a range of suggestions which are denied to or disdained by truth. This is the fact that rhymes for truth are few, and only one of them * has much potentiality for discovering or urging insights...
This marked paucity of suggestive rhyming for truth, which lends it a lonely dignity and integrity, contrasts sharply with the manifest and manifold rhymes which crowd upon or from lie: fly ( with its altruism or cowardice), die ( with its moment of truth and its horizantality), I and my ( with their sincerity or insincerity), eye ( with its honesty or shiftiness), and so on.
... It is Shakespear's work which provides the transition from those linguistic considerations which give salience to the  lie/lie pun, to the more largely human considerations which give importance to it. For there is a prima facie likelihood that a pun which is so ubiquiously necessary to the greatest writer inthe language is a very important pun. Shakespear, who needs and wants the words lie, lies, and lying  hundreds of times in his work, has only three times thepunless form lied. We should ask ourselves whether the fretfulness or impatience which we sometimes feel with these puns is to Shakespeare's siscredit or to ours- have we lost, or bebome blinded to, the important considerations that presumably seemed to Shakespeare to raise above triviality such an insistence as this?

                                That, Lye, shall lieso heavy on my Sword,
                                That it shall render Vengeance, and Revenge,
                                Till thou the Lye-giver, and that Lye, do Lye
                                In earth as quiet, as thy Father's Scull.
                                                                         ( Richard 11 !V.i)
... The importance of the llie/lie is that it concentates an exraordinary wide-ranging and profound network of truth testing situations and postures. It brings mendacity up against those situations and postures which constitute thegreat moments or endurances of truth: the child-bed, the love-bed, the bed of sleep and dreams, the sick-bed, the death-bed, the grave....And even perhaps the modern secular counterpart to the confessional's kneeling: the psychiatrist's couch. It conentrates this network, or rather concentrated it, since historical and cultural circumstances are now disintegrating it.             

* The word 'youth'.

Christopher Ricks
Reprinted from:-
'Lies, in The Force of Poetry,
Oxford University Press, 1984.

NEWS OF THE WORLD GOOD RIDDANCE, THANK YOU MR MURDOCH, NOW WILL YOU FINALLY **** OFF.

So  it's good riddance to the News of the World. Hip Hip Hooray.

Now Rebecca Wade/Brooks  and her cronies the News International Gang repeatedly threaten that they won't forget those that pusued them. Well what she should realise is that the people will not forget what they - and those like Cameron and Bliar , who have colluded with them - have done to truth and our so called democracy. A democracy that allows a government to win an election because of  a higly manipulated biased press, who line their pockets.

While we still have the focus, while we still have the power, we must do what we can to stand up to Mr Murdoch and make him realise that enough is enough. Public opinion is now firmly against his proposed takeover of Bsky D, with voters finally ( have they been bloody sleeping for the last 30 years or so) to the fact  that Mr Murdoch has way to much power, and influence over U.K publications. We must stop buying his publications and stop watching his satellite T.V.
Finally David Cameron's position himself looks increasinly precarious, as the true scale of his connections to the News of the World phone hacking scandal emerges. Whilst they are tarnished, we must attack, and keep pounding, whilst they are weak , suffering from self-inflicted wounds, we must stand together resisting their failing powers. It is I feel the only way.United we can make them powerless.
In the meantime I'm off for a cold beer.

picture of a smug ******* 

oh and sign this

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/cameronresignnow

Neal Sparkes - affirmation ( the process of rituals) / on the corner

  

In London at moment, struck by its immediacy, its snake like charm, but all that glitters is not gold, just look at News International, anyway tonight I wont get drawn on that, the whole business is quite tiring, the whole way the media is, it needs desperate rearranging. The story seems to change every time I look on the computer, I suppose this is the power of the internet. It is nice to see Mr Camerons friends getting desperate, but we must remember their cunning and their deviousness.  liars and manipulators ,well practiced in the art of dark manouvering. It is nice to see the power of the people in this country getting listened too, but remember , where there is wealth, there is arrogance and lots and lots of spin, oh dear I did fall in. Will probably go down to news international on Friday to have a spit or two. Oh dear. 
On a different note an artist I have long admired is Mr Neil Sparkes ,best known for his work with Transglobal Undergound  and the Temple of Sound, curretly performing under his own moniker with the last Tribe. His work draws on a myriad of world sources, and resonates through both literary and cultural worlds. A questioning, reasonable mind   that offers hope, glimpses of positivity,  a fine wordsmith that give another taste to this strange ( but rather beautiful)  city I'm visiting. 
Here are two poems.

affirmation ( the process of rituals)

tell me when
that exchange
aching beautiful
as butterfly wings
slow opening
the best sex
was ever safe
- and i'm not
talking abut condoms

tell me we must
read medical journals
to know we are
dissapearing just as
fast as we're arriving
on the scene
- the ones that
make it that is,
not sucked out
on anonymous tables
early flushed
miscarriage
down the pan

tell me blood's
thicker than water
and the atoms
of the nuclear family
constitute a religious belief
- your creator's
packed his bags
and caught the
last bus to babylon

tell me we're happy
living in rooms
that cannot contain us
when once we slept outdoors
smoking summer leaf
turned on by the heat
of being alive  

tell me what we
know and believe

          tell me the sun
          is dancing on
          the river thames

tell me there's knowing
in doing and deeds
the physical knowledge
of making, of what
your body is capable
-even you'd be surprised

tell me of knowledge in memory
 served by instinct and necessity
in speech and words
the rhythym of hands
the heart beat of drums
and making drums

intiuition is that
known or a belief?
to trust chance and luck
on the back of doing,
certainly you will succeed,
in what?

tell me of the elements
the flesh and blood material
of the spirits that reside in these
their energies and forces tell me
of something ritual and instinctual
that cannot have one name
but to many will
individually be known
these we seek to acknowledge
to draw out
through rituals of music
sex and pictures
          a sacred dance
the process of rituals
does reveal and affirm
that which has been
        and will always be

now tell me we haven't
got anything in common

now tell me we can't
get along  


on the corner

city animal
urban ceature
spine of bass
their rhythm is the thing
chest and lungs
become djembe drums
beating out rhythyms
from the tombs
of our pain
singing the primal blues
sacrificial saxophones
weave threads between
thought and song
sexy as killers
hard as the red lips
of bought lovers
muted trumpets
speaking louder than the whispering
cruel corners of
the street
          on the corner
shopping for dreams
where you can
buy anything
if the price is right
betting shops the ace of spades
sleeping 'til mid-day
rising at dawn
rebuilding the city
in your own likeness
-in your dreams
       on the corner
speeding through the night
on the dance floor of a club
hot coffee in a cup
drank down before
it's gone cold
red wine rain water
pure grain alcohol
riding the main vein up town
catching the nightmare train
all the way home
          on the corner
tripping through a
city of sounds
dread warnings
fear and loathing
enough famine
and lawnessness
to drive us out of our minds
talking tall and still unsure
wanting everything
used to nothing at all
able and feaful
eating ourselves alive
          on the corner
lost in a city of sounds
as vast as the sky
and still, somehow
all up and down the street
the lights shining
from people's eyes
         on the corner

From : -Critical Quarterly
             WORD SOUND POWER
              volume 38, no 4, Winter  1996

Neal Sparkes has seveal collections of poetry available from Hangman Books. 

Committing Poetry

The documentary film Committing Poetry  in Times of War  tells the story of Bill Nevins, a humanities teacher and youth poetry coach who was suspended and later fired from his teaching job after standing up for a student who wrote a poem critical of the war in Iraq.
Is it not the job of teachers to help people see things in a different way, allowing students to question, challenge and crtically engage. The teachers who I remember fondly, encouraged me to do this.
With the current media under scrutiny, values of thoughtful inquiry, away from schools of conformity, should be more than welcomed.In the case of Bill Nevin's the people rallied round.Inspired by the notion of creativity as a tool of change.
I find it unbelievable that students are not taught to engage with their imagination like this every day. I disagree with a lot of things, luckily for me, I discovered the joys of freedom, the enemies of this are already at the gates. But I still deny fascism a platform, that too is my right.
As for Bill he simply carried on teaching elsewhere and engaged himself in writing his own poems
http://www.committingpoetry.com/

Brian Jones ( 28/2/42 - 3/7/69) His light shines on in some Painted Rainbows

Psychic T.V - Godstar

The pact he made was never ordinary
lucky or mistaken we shall never know,
behaviour fell off the mark
promises failed in stormy weather,
under the influence
out ov time,
nearby magic tearooms
and melodramas,
played under setting suns
rich in chemistry,
indolence raged
as Pan mischieviously led.

'Israel afraid of the truth'

Hopefully the Freedom Flotilla sailing from Greece should soon be on it's way soon.In the meantime we should demand that the Government and the powers in Greece allow this peaceful convoy to sail. They sail as an expression of world citizens involved in non-violent, direct action,confronting ongoing abuses of Palestinian human and political rights.
The way America has colluded with the Greek and Israeli authorities has been shameful.
I believe in hope and also that this siege must be broken.
" Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians" - Nelson Mandela.

Theodore Roethke ( 25/5/08 - 1/8/63) - Long Live the weeds.

Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm-
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spitit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit,
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I .

Off too London town, cat sitting, opportunity again to reflect, I like doing that.
Time for a little Marx, Miro, Schielle, some driftin, reflecting.... find some reasons to be doubtful.
Emma Goldman reminds me to keep on dancing., carry on believing. 
In the evening find some music,  cross some fences, look at a pretty city, sit awhile, feel the beat underneath my feet. Lights will dazzle, for a while........ 
in the meantime I leave something in the air..
probably be posting sooner than I think....
hope I remember when it's gone.