Friday 6 May 2011

The Experiment - Broomtoad Coldsnap


a petri dish,
aireal view of Buckingham palace
the crowds, the host,
the virus, them.
ah again the experiment

Here's the Historical - moment.
The kiss -
the host is behaving, responding,
perfectly, roaring in priapic extasy.
( a spectral light swooning) ?

in majestic serenity
the transaction is completed
Heavy velvet curtains
billow a little, in a soiled wind
from the stained streets.

the fairy tale - told
was a success!
crosseyed subjects
moved gently away by police
wearing white gloves.


mandrake. twitches
incantation
a Tea leaf reading

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Undecided. But don't call me apathetic.



Whose right, whose wrong, does voting make any difference?
Not much difference between any of them anymore, but the tories no, no, and no again....  the liberals have broken to many promises and colluded just for power's sake.
Do we want the same bloody system adinfinitum? I certainly don't.
Remember all the major paries would have cut, the tories I suppose  are finishing what New Labour started. The tories though a bloody lot worse, ideological driven, an enemy to progress, just wan't to go back in time, back to the 1920s.  Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance claimants were already in New Labours sites. Plaid around here am afraid have let us down with their proposed badger cull, cosied up to Labour.
The Greens, retain integrity though and have a ear for social justice , a radical edge, that has unfotunately been diluted by the rest of them.
Certain parties on the left stand once again , against one another, not united yet.

Perhaps you will choose freedom and vote for none, on the AV vote this could though be the last chance to any electoral change for years, and a yes vote would give the tories a good beating.
 However, stay safe on the streets when you find yourself in battle,  the freedom to demonstrate,at the moment, getting perilous, the police have decided they too can be political, with pre-emptive arrests recently, people are being presumed guilty before actually doing anything.
Yes this is democracy.
Will voting tomorrow change this?

Times are getting grimmer .....  but resistance is not futile

Do not most of us, lose all the time. Consensus government, as a friend said and numerical majorities do not a democracy make.
We will see, but don't call me fucking apathetic.
The least we can do is get angry.
The Welsh Assembly Elections are takin place tomorrow ,in case you wondered what I was blathering on about, and up in Scotland, and local elections up and down the country.

Oh and here's a quote from Emma Goldman

" The State is the altar of political freedom, and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for human sacrifice." 

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Fuck Bin Laden R.I.P Ira Cohen (3/2/35 - 25/4/11)

So Osama Bin Laden. Dead or alive.  Has he not already been killed once, back in 2001.No chance of him inconveniently turning up alive. I don't know whether to believe this story.even less believable than the London Met. But if he really is dead why has NATO decided to retain 140,000 troops in Afghanistan. Perhaps they  know that a global terrorist network is looking for a new manager.
It's still indiscriminate hypocricy though. Many thousands more are killed and silenced by cluster bombs and bullets, buried under warped truth. History repeats itself like a curse. Do we seek  to stoke the flames of reactionary forces and division.Terrorists kill, Governments kill, what is the difference? Civilisation, oh look at us,  aren't we clever, still playing the old blame game, finding bullshit redemption.Undercover of the night, bodies lost at sea. Evil bogeyman killed, people rejoice and the killing carries on regardless.
Anyway here's a quote

" I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not recognise in the death of one. Not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. "

- Martin Luther King

Anyway,
I'm not going to surrender to hate,  I believe in a future one day soon where love will overtake. Another word is ours for the taking.
Even sadder news with the death of Mr Ira Cohen, freed from the fetters of hope. A poet and universal visionary , filmaker, bookmaker, friend to many,disciple of eclectism, shaman of insight, R.I.P.
and the dust so fine
these are suggestions
wave on wave
reach out
each ring
will be upon the wind
some of us forever invisible
carried on honeyed breeze
far in to oceanic jungle
staring out
as mountains erupt
volcanic storms
sway forever, forever , forever

Link to wiki entry on Ira Cohen.

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


 Ira Cohen in conversation.



Song to Nothing -Ira Cohen

And surely we will die without memory
coming to cold in the shadow of space
& if it isn't too late
for the star to love you
spraying the sky with whispers
attuned to galaxies hungry for flame
And if the togue of night sings
of Albino winos
till the morning light shafts
the doorway
then surely we will die tonight
faceless at the White Gate
sharing the smoke
with ancient shapes in future garb
and you stand somewhere there
on the other side
feeding on the painof dreamlessness
Where from the misty morning of
white shadows
& the unresisting need to destroy?

Samuel, Samuel, I beg it may be forgiven
that they may be driven
out of the black into the white
Only let the dazzle remain
for gamblers to surprise
the stragecic diamond, the throne
of compressed bone
in the unshored dark
where only light can forgive
& your mind is singed
Embers of echoes in the vastness
disguise the yearning to burn blind eyes
in arrogant displays of feeling?
Running wild these beasts will feast
on the newborn kind
for surely we will die tonight
unless we learn to ignore
what the others live for
on the other side of morning
& the skin of Nothing left by the same summer
masks the faceless wanderer

O let it happen
this wierd to discover
the shape of Beauty in everything extreme

for surely we will die tonight
whether we will or whether we
dream
O Samuel, forgive the dreamer
forgive the dream
The Song of Nothing is your lullabye.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Songs for the People - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (24/9/1825 - 22/2/11)


Let me make the songs for the people,
Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
Wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres,
For carnage nor for strife;
But songs to thrill the hearts of men
With more abundant life.

Let me make songs for the weary,
Amid life's fever and fret,
Till hearts shall relax their tension,
And cakeworm brows forget.

Let me sing for little children,
Before the footsteps stray,
Sweet anthems of love and duty,
To float o'er life's highway.

I would sing for the poor and aged,
When shadows dim their sight;
Of the bright and restful mansions,
Where there shall be no night.

Our world, so worn and weary
Needs  music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.

Music to soothe all its sorow,
Till war and crime shall cease;
And the hearts of men grow tender
Girdle the world with peace.

HAPPY MAY DAY/ BELTANE

The government wants to move this day, to celebrate St George in April, or the battle of Trafalgar in October....... is this  because it's  the people day with all it's madness's and idiosyncracies. A time to remember rebellion, independent spirit, dissent. Clarion calling down through the centuries. Humankind's common unity. The celebrations and traditions of ordinary people.
Cameron does not like ordinary people,  does not respect them, then you'd expect that from a tory wouldn't you.
May your day be full of wonder, mischief and merriment...........
heddwch/peace

Thursday 28 April 2011

Pantomine's Pageantry - Not for me folks.


O.K perhaps we sometimes need a bit of magic to lift us up, in dark days, but does a fancy dress show of exteme extravegance and wealth, really do the trick. Have you not been amazed by the disgraceful fawning by the majority of the British media, every day ad infinitum,  it really is very difficult to ignore ,and makes me reach out for a  sick back everytime .Do they really have the popularity  that is accorded to them. Its really difficult to find any balance at the moment. What with the daily bombardment.
Hey I like it when people find love, love is wonderful, the world needs it, it's there for everyone, but the cost of this wedding is going to be about £20 million, and this anti democratic family are paying how much? Um  £100,000, that might seem a lot, but when you think that the Queen alone gets about £40million  a year, it really is loose change .In a time of recession, are there not other  things this government should be spending ourr money on, er, hospitals, schools , welfare for the poor amongst other things.
This wedding a mere distraction perhaps while this government of ours carry out the most destructive policies in living memory.
The Royal families kingdom is based purely on ancient and lets face it pretty rotten foundations, for me they are an overpaid and pretty phenomenally wealthy, and incredibly outdated obscenity.
Hey if they want to get married let it be, a simple registry affair, meet a few mates down the pub before hand , buy a round..., and no roads will be blocked, traffic paralysed, offensive slogans chanted and banners brandished.



But no whoopee they've given us a national holiday, but a lot of us ,the silent minority as the media are sarcastically calling us,are in mood for celebrating, and if I never see Nicholas Whitchurch ever again I will be extremely grateful, the B.B.C an organisation that I have long admired keep telling me stuff like William's just one of the lads and that Kate's a commoner, well if thats the case I really am on planet Zog. Kate  will now enters a world where she never does a proper days work again in her life and still get paid. Unbelieavable, as people on benefits are being called scroungers, and getting much needed support scrapped, here we our dishing out more money to a family who simply do not deserve it.
If the royal wedding never ended and the guests never left, how many dictatorships would achieve regime change? There seem to be that many despots attending. Perhaps  it should be made mandatory that the Church doors are blocked after the ceremony and let no one out.
Don't want to put a dampener on this fancy parade but I hear it might rain. As you are probably aware by now I for one will not be dancing , even though it's also international dance day, and save the frog day,  incidentally.The world apparently will be watching this circus. I simply don't believe it, and the hype is so disproportionate. If we do not see any dissent it's because the powers that be have simply censored it, in this twisted version  of reality.
I think I'll turn the T.V ,switch of the internet, its goin to be non-stop , a stuff of  nightmares. Anyway I will try my best to simply ignore it. Hope I've convinced some to do the same.
Have a nice day.

Viva Republic. Spread real love.........

http://www.republic.org.uk/

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Time's Exhaust

'
picture by Rod Scneider

Weekend gone, sat in garden
in distant city, people distracted 
misplaced priorities, in search of profit,
consumerism running riot, everything out of control
safety and caution bypassed to save some pennies,
a broken  process caught up in its own denial.
watch as corruption simply grows and grows
meanwhile at home, sun out, minding it's own business
neighbour shouted across the wall,
"lovely weather, mate, especially if your not working"
" Yeah " I sighed, turned my trowel in rich earth,
turning wilderness into something
deeper still, tearing down walls,
finding immediacy, even when lost
embracing rocks and stones, nurturing moss,
underneath a thousand currents
rested in  the shadows of  infinite,
where future's nourishment
knows another notion,
in former days of work slavery
obstacles galore fed on emptiness,
digging now for survival
belief in nature's power is definite,
Every word , a seed of tomorrow's breath
time exhausts,  air is full of living dust,
the careless  delay of language
echoes across the centuries,
when all the clocks stop
we will see history that we will all remember,
reality traded for paradise
beyond the ruination of now.


Tuesday 26 April 2011

Poly Styrene (1957 - 25/4/11 ) CANCER KILLS IDENTITY, CANCER IS A BITCH.

She had her ups, she had her downs, but she was a true fighter, an iconclast.
" Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard"

Friday 22 April 2011

The Madness of Language - Anahita Alikhani


English is the most widely spoken language in the world, and is taught in every country.But  spoken and colloquial English is very different from the polite language which is taught in schools. For somebody like myself, encountering the everyday language when we arrive in Britain can be very perplexing. For example, I've discovered there is one word which can be used to express a huge range of feelings as varied as anger, disgust, happinness, joy, astonishement, drunkeness and so on.
An imaginary meeting between a foreign newcomer and a native of Britain can go smething like this:
- Where are you from?
- Persia
-Where  the ****ing hell is Persia?
- In Asia.
- Oh! ****ing long way from home!
- Oh yes!
- Hows the weather there ?
- Warm and nice.
- Oh ! ****ing brilliant! What the **** are you doing here?
- I'm a refugee.
- Oh, ****ing asylum seekers! Pain in the ****!
- Excuse me, do you have a problem? Do you have piles?
- **** ***!!!
-Excuse me, does this word mean yes or no?
- It means move your ****ing **** and go to hell!
I can imagine that in a hundred years or so, as the language evolves, this word might be used even more widely, for example on the news:
" This morning Her ****ing Majesty the ****ing Queen opened her ****ing Jubilee Celebrations..."

Saesneg yw'r iaith a siaredir fwyaf yn y byd i gyd, ac fe gaiff ei dysgu ymhob gwlad. Ond mae Saesneg Llafar, taodiethol, yn wahanol iawn i'r iaith lednais a ddysgir mewn ysgolion. I rywun fel fi, yn dod ar draws yr iaith bob-dydd wrth gyrraed Prydain, mae'n gallu bod yn ddryslyd iawn. Er enghraifft, rwyf wedi darganfod bod un gair y gellir ei ddefnyddio i fynegi ystod enfawr o deimladau amrywiol: dicter; ffiend-dra; hapursrwydd; gorfoledd; syndod; meddwdod, ac yn y blaen.
Gall cyfarfod dychmygol rhwng newydd-ddyfodiad o dramor a brodor o Brydain fynd rhywbeth fel hyn:
- O ble ti'n dod ?
- Persia
-
- Ble'r **** mae Persia?
- Yn Asia.
- O! **** o ffordd bell oddi cartre!
- O, ie!
- Sut mae'r tywydd acw?
- Twym a braf.
- O! ****** brilliant! Be'r **** wyt t'in wneud yma?
- Ffoadur ydw i.
- O ****** ceiswyr lloches! Poen yn y pen ol!
- Mae'n ddrwg gen i, oes gennych chi broblem? Oes clwyf y
marchogion gyda chi?
- ***** ***!!!
- Mae'n ddrwg gen i, ydy'r gair hwn yn golygu ie neu nage?
- Mae'n golygu symud dy ****** hun a dos o 'ma!
Gallaf ddychmygu, ymhen rhyw ganrif, fel y mae'r iaith yn esblygu, y caiff y gair hwn ei ddenyddio hyd yn oed yn fyw cang. Ar y newyddion, er enghraifft: " Y bore 'ma, fe agorrodd Ei ******
Mawrhydi y ****** Frenhines ei ****** dathliadau Jiwbili ..."

FROM : Gwyl y Blaidd/ The Festival of the Wolf.
Parthian 2006
in conjunction with hafan books, which provides outlet in Wales for the creativity of refugees, asylum, seekers and their supporters and to raise awareness.
SWANSEA BAY ASYLUM SEEKERS SUPPORT GROUP
is primary bebeficiary and can be contacted below.
http://www.hafan.org/

Have a happy Easter if your into that type of thing,
and remember remove all borders.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

John Cooper Clarke ( b 5/1/49)- Apart from the Revolution, (some musings after Performance in April in Laugharne.)


Was lucky to see Mr Clarke, Sunday gone at the Millenium Centre down in Laugharne, as part of this villages very own Literature festival. On top form, their he stood before us, half stand up, half free verserfier, their was a full moon  & the tide was high, as so were most of the audience or so it seemed to me.
He entertained with his full dexterious verbiosity, Their he was ramshackle& gangly to the core, looking the same to me , as the last time I'd seen hiim way back in 1988 or thereabouts.
" Call me Johhny Clarke " he said " the man behind the hairstyle ".
Here was a master at work, patois working, motormouthing away to us grateful hoards , in the nicest possible way. 60 years young, lank like a beanpole his dark shades blitzing us whilst his acerbic rays unleashed. Valid social commentary shining bright, a poet on top, blazing ,alive.
Seeing the Bard Of Salford again was akin to a religious experience, so long have I worshipped this dark but bright light from afar.
When they called time on him, about 10 to 11, he seemed to have so much more to deliver.He wondered where he could get a bite to eat, " everything shut " cried a local. " Oh well he said", I think he said he'd see us soon, as he headed off into the night.
Me and my partner were hungry too by then, for more words, and yeah I suppose a bag of chips or something. Ah a wonderful evening, afterwards we took a stroll down to the bay to gaze at the moon, pay our respects, to Laugharnes's ghosts. We  wondered what Dylan Thomas might have thought. I think he would have acknowledged a mercurial greatness.

Laugharne Castle.
Anyweay hope it's not another 20 years before I see Mr Clarke again.

Apart from the Revolution.

Each drop of blood a rose shall be
all sorrow shall be dust
blown by breezes to the sea
whose fingers thrust
into the corners of restless night
where the creatures of the deep
avoid the flashing harbour lights
in search of endless sleep
there were executions
somebody had to pay
apart from the revolution
it's another working day

a million angels sing
peasants eating cake
wedding bells are ringing
the room begins to shake
the children free from measles all
have healthy teeth and gums
they live in the cathedrals
and worship in the slums
poverty and pollution
have all swept away
apart from the revolution
it's another working day.

Oh He ended on version of his classic Beardsley Street updated for now.
The following is not from the performance I saw.
Nice post over at rocket remnant's blog about the previous nights performance at Dylan Thomas's boathouse over on the right in the links.