(Notes on not getting hung-up on poetry.) I’m very aware that the very word ‘poetry’ is a big turn-off for some people. I can understand that. So let’s ignore defining sets of words as poems or anything else. Let’s focus on what I’m trying to achieve instead. Sometimes I’m keen to write brief bits of … (Read More)
I Don’t Want To Be An Accomplice
(Why ‘Trust And Verify’ exists.) Visiting a site where they used to test the triggers for nuclear bombs is bound to provoke … thoughts. Some are obvious. Being appalled at the way the place has been merely abandoned, with no effort to clean it up, is hardly surprising.* And being confronted with one of the … (Read More)
Trust And Verify
They tested the triggers for nuclear bombs here. ‘We all have to be able to defend ourselves.’ Those few words or similar and that’s it – the common belief. It’s applied to countries. Think about it and you realise we apply it to ourselves too. Unquestioned, the assumption is that those words alone justify the … (Read More)
Some Splendid Isolation
Alone. Noticing. Solitary, for a while. Aware that the day is the way it is. Aware that it ends. Aware that it might not be that way. Appreciating. Everywhere – “she said …” and “he said …” All the words that others make but make for others Buy – the day’s desires. Unnoticed realities underpin … (Read More)
(14 Pauses) The Suitably Seasonal (≅ 878)
It’s almost always good to pause. I paused to look around me in December. ********** What would be suitable photos to accompany an English Christmas-New Year? Appropriate photos? And, indeed, what would be appropriate text to go with them? ********** Whether you want to actively participate or not, whether the English Christmas-New Year dates are … (Read More)
Certain Uncertainty
Today was the day I idly thought about plants having feelings. We might think of them as ‘feelings’, but that can only be a limp analogy. For them, their conscious state, their awareness, would be wholly, utterly, completely different. It would be of a type, of a quality, we can’t even begin to imagine, let … (Read More)
No Room Of Your Own
Today was the day I saw a different kind of have-not. Joe and Josephine say they often have a few drinks down there, down by the lake. They don’t have anywhere else to go. Not really. He can go back to his parents’ place and she can go back to hers. And that’s fine; their … (Read More)
New Old Friends
The first of the month. An insignificant date. There’s the vague, slight and retrospective attraction of the obvious – namely, starting something on a ‘first day’ – but nothing more. I’ve long thought that “This Was The Day” might be a worthwhile project. It’s a Sunday, I had some spare time to make a start … (Read More)
Judging ‘The Judges’
(The processes behind the “The Judges” story.) How a story happened, part one: A while ago I had to head up towards Boston for a meeting. Unusually, the meeting was to be over Sunday lunch, so I’d had to find a hotel for a Saturday night. I was with a friend – make work pleasurable … (Read More)
The Judges (≅ 1,860)
It was just another hotel for Anthony, on the side of an ‘A’ road and not far from Boston. Not bargain-basement but not expensive; its willingness to take a single person booking for a single night on a Saturday had been its main attraction. It had meant he could do a day’s round of calling … (Read More)
