Autumnal

 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun...

... And time for a flu jab, and our 10th?  (11th?  12th? ) Covid jab...

... Now all done.

RIP Brian Patten

 Another Poet lost.

Minister for Exams

When I was a child I sat an exam.
This test was so simple
There was no way i could fail.

Q1. Describe the taste of the Moon.

It tastes like Creation I wrote,
it has the flavour of starlight.

Q2. What colour is Love?

Love is the colour of the water a man
lost in the desert finds, I wrote.

Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?

I wrote, they melt because they fall
on to the warm tongue of God.

There were other questions.
They were as simple.

I described the grief of Adam
when he was expelled from Eden.
I wrote down the exact weight of
an elephant's dream

Yet today, many years later,
For my living I sweep the streets
or clean out the toilets of the fat
hotels.

Why? Because constantly I failed
my exams.
Why? Well, let me set a test.

Q1. How large is a child's
imagination?
Q2. How shallow is the soul of the
Minister for exams?

See also Gust Becos I Cud Not Spel

RIP Tony Harrison

 Sad news of the death of Tony Harrison, much admired by us hear at the Trees.

Guardian Obituary

And A Kumquat for John Keats

Mitch Poem

 

Sung At The Event For Ken

 I've been drinking in the Ornithologists' Arms

Come with me, let's go there now
We'll drink to the revolution
We'll drink to the avian population
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
'Cos you can't save the birds without saving the planet
And you can't save the planet under capital
Under capital

We'll have a pint with the country postman
He'll talk of early morning owls
And of night-jars in the mist
And how his management take the piss
And singers and poets and all value freedom
Will talk of birds on the wing
And the songs of freedom that they sing
And the flight of the peregrine

I've been drinking in the Ornithologists' Arms
Come with me, let's go there now
We'll drink to the revolution
We'll drink to the avian population
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
'Cos you can't save the birds without saving the planet
And you can't save the planet under capital
Under capital

And the sign of the pub is a giant murmuration
It's starlings practising mutual aid
And on the bookshelf sits battered old Kropotkin
He was more than red in tooth and claw
And on the walls hang old binoculars 
That date from early in this age of extinction
Charts of sea levels rising
Charts of sea levels rising

I've been drinking in the Ornithologists' Arms
Come with me, let's go there now
We'll drink to the revolution
We'll drink to the avian population
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
We'll drink and drink we'll talk and talk, we'll talk and drink some more
'Cos you can't save the birds without saving the planet
And you can't save the planet under capital
Under capital

And the vagrants and the migrants are all equally welcome
Yes the vagrants and the migrants are all equally welcome
It's not like here, it's not like here
Yes the vagrants and the migrants are all equally welcome

I've been drinking in the Ornithologists' Arms
Come with me, let's go there now

As it is Hot Today, Let's Discuss the Climate, Not the Weather...

 

I'll post this tomorrow...

 

Star Wars Poem

 

Welcome

 

Plum Wordl

 

Not Larkin About

They fuck you up, your mum and dad,

But not as much as Tories do,

Who lie about high jinks they had,

And break the rules they place on you.

A party? Held at Downing Street?

They can’t remember when or where,

With wine to drink and food to eat,

And journos from the Sun were there —

The treachery of this foul clan

Goes deeper than the Spanish Main.

Kick the sods out, soon as you can,

And never vote for them again.

(Sandra Bond, After Philip Larkin) 

Lovely Weather

 

Fugue

 Fugue

Don’t get us wrong.
We do pound for what has passed,
But more so all that we passed by—
Unthanking, unknowing,
When what we had was ours.

There was another gap that choked us:
The simple gift of farewell.
Goodbye, by which we say to another—
Thanks for offering your life into mine.
By Goodbye, we truly mean:
Let us be able to say hello again.

This is edgeless doubt:
Every cough seemed catastrophe,
Every proximate person a potential peril.
We mapped each sneeze & sniffle,
Certain the virus we had run away from
Was now running through us.

We slept the days down.
We wept the year away,
Frayed & afraid.

Perhaps that is what it means
To breathe & die in this flesh.
Forgive us,
For we have walked
This before.

History flickered in
& out of our vision,
A movie our eyelids
Staggered through.

We added a thousand false steps
To our walk tracker today
Because every step we’ve taken
Has required more than we had to give.

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In such eternal nature,
We spent days as the walking dead,
Dreading disease & disaster.
We cowered, bone-shriveled
As a laurel in drought, our throats
Made of frantic workings,
Feet falling over themselves
Like famished fawns.
We awaited horrors,
Building up leviathans before they arose.
We could not pull our heads
From the raucous deep.
Anxiety is a living body,
Poised beside us like a shadow.

It is the last creature standing,
The only beast who loves us
Enough to stay.

We were already thousands
Of deaths into the year.
Every time we fell heart-first into the news,
Head-first, dread-first,
Our bodies tight & tensed with what now?
Yet who has the courage to inquire what if?

What hope shall we shelter
Within us like a secret,
Second smile,
Private & pure.

Sorry if we’re way less friendly —*
We had COVID tryna end things.
Even now handshakes & hugs are like gifts,
Something we are shocked to grant, be granted.
& so, we forage for anything
That feels like this:
The click in our lung that ties us to strangers,
How when among those we care for most
We shift with instinct,
Like the flash of a school of fish.
Our regard for one another
Not tumored,
Just transformed.

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By Hello, we mean:
Let us not say goodbye again.
There is someone we would die for.
Feel that fierce, unshifting truth,
That braced & ready sacrifice.
That’s what love does:
It makes a fact faced beyond fear.
We have lost too much to lose.
We lean against each other again,
The way water bleeds into itself.
This glassed hour, paused,
Bursts like a loaded star,
Belonging always to us.
What more must we believe in.

Amanda Gorman

Picket Line Poem

 Goldsmiths Picket Line Poem

(read on Goldsmiths Picket Line and at yesterday's UCU rally in Tavistock Square)

In the boring bad old days

universities were run by

people who had taught

people who had researched

people who had lectured.

We trusted them

that they would run universities

in the interests of students

in the interests of staff

in the interests of education.

That was in the boring bad old days.

Now in the exciting modern days

universities can be run by bankers

people who screwed up the world

economic system in 2008

people who invented the idea that

you could borrow money in order to buy debt

people who gambled with the livelihoods

of millions

And our university has done it.

Our university has rolled over

like a puppy waiting for a tickle

and invited the bankers in

to run our university.

And what a surprise:

the first thing they’ve come up with

is to get rid of staff.

The first thing they’ve come up with

is get rid of the very thing

that universities are here for:

get rid of the people who make education.

This tells us

that they’re trying to make Goldsmiths

a place where education

is not first and foremost

a place designed

to educate

to train

to enlighten

It’s place designed

to make a profit.

We are now the means

by which bankers can extract

interest payments from education.

The work of staff

and the fees of students

are there to produce profits:

profits for the bankers

profits for the shareholders of the banks

profits for the people who screwed up the world

economic system in 2008

profits for the people who invented the idea that

you could borrow money in order to buy debt

profits for the people who gambled with the livelihoods

of millions.

That’s what this fight is all about.

What do we want

Education for bankers?

Or education for all?

Michael Rosen

Rich Plums

From Twitter   

I have eaten

the rich

who were in

their mansions

and who

you were probably

being

fucked o'er by

Forgive me

they were delicious

so plump

and so scared

Hal Duncan 

Wham. Plum. Johnson.

 

This is Baroque, Grisly Fun...

 

Swallowing Lies

The great British nation adopted a lie,

I don't know why we adopted a lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

The great British nation, we followed a twat,

Well, fancy that? We followed a twat.

We followed the twat who told us the lie,

I don't know why we adopted the lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

The great British nation, we believed in a bus,

I don't know why; that's not like us.

We believed in the bus that was owned by the twat,

I don't know why the fuck we did that.

We followed the twat who told us the lie,

I don't know why we adopted the lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

The great British nation, we wanted blue passes,

I don't know when we became such arses.

We wanted blue passes because of the bus,

It's too bloody late now to kick up a fuss.

We believed in the bus that was owned by the twat,

I don't know why the fuck we did that.

We followed the twat who told us the lie,

I don't know why we adopted the lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

The great British nation, we yearned to be free,

To throw off the shackles of EU tyranny.

We needed our freedom to manage the virus,

Which helped us ignore the way they betrayed us.

The freedom we won bought us shiney new passes,

Please explain once again how we became such arses.

We wanted blue passes because of the bus,

It's too bloody late now to kick up a fuss.

We believed in the bus that was owned by the twat,

I don't know why the fuck we did that.

We followed the twat who told us the lie,

I don't know why we adopted the lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

The great British public, we salute Freedom Day!

That's the day that the virus can really make hay.

We needed the virus to kill off the old,

The sick, the frail and the stupidly bold.

This plague island nation now stands on its own,

An outcast the civilised world must disown.

The freedom we won to get shiny new passports,

Hasn't helped much in the way of getting food transports.

We wanted blue passes because of the bus,

Maybe the bus will feed all of us?

We believed in the bus that was owned by the twat,

I don't know why the fuck we did that.

We followed the twat who told us the lie,

I don't know why we adopted the lie,

Perhaps we'll die.

One hundred and fifty thousand lives gambled to date,

While the government stokes up the fires of hate.

One hundred and fifty thousand lives, and they show no remorse.

They're dead, of course.

(Andy Steven)

If You Can Keep Your Job...

 

Refugees