Sixth Form Poetry: To Be Alone With You

I don't know what's come over me of late, I'm snowed under with bad poetry, swatting the decency of the English language aside like the wanton destruction wreaked by a giant with a broken heart, toppling buildings and smashing bridges to find the one who has made him become this.

Of course, when he finds her he loses the strength of all of his convictions and sinks to his knees, unable to do anything. Oh to be small again...

Love is a dress that you made long
To hide your knees
Love to say this to your face:
"I'll love you only"
May I be weaved in your hair?
Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can't say
Love to say this in your ear:
"I'll love you that way"
From your changing contentments
What will you choose for to share?
May I be weaved in your hair?

Deliverance Redux: Telford

Got back from Telford yesterday, no idea how I made it after the attempted sexing up of my sweet young ass by the evil legend that is Old Man Rich.

I was eventually chased out of the area of the UK not known as "The Wrekin" by a heathen bunch of gentlemen with their trousers round their ankles, wiping spittle from their frothing gobs. Being a dirty slut, I loved every damn moment of it.

Joy to at last see the Merkster and to engage in politically agitational banter over a pint, the only shame was that Fulla was not wearing one of his fancy jumpers.

I am now back and in full effect, so expect the usual bad poetry and pointless swiping at the political machinations of those in power.

Your mum.

They Callin' Me!

Off to Telford today for the final section of the tour, where I hope some of our audience members will be dressed in moose costumes. I shall be back in full blogging effect on Thursday, lashing out at everyone and everything around me with bad poetry, poor politics and destructive behaviour.

Until then I'd like to leave you with these words...

Some day her shape in the doorway
Will speak to me
A bird’s wing on the window
Sometimes I’ll hear her when she’s sleeping
Her fever dream
A language on her face
I want your flowers like babies want God’s love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come
Some days, like rain on the doorstep
She’ll cover me
With grace in all she offers
Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
What honest words she can’t afford to say like
I want your flowers like babies want God’s love

Telford Blues

I've just got back from the penultimate week of the run of Dreams Come Out To Play in Telford (which for those of you that don't know, is in Shropshire, the county I hate the most in the world) where myself, Kieran (on the left), Alex (on the right) and Ana (seen below, blowing her nose) had the pleasure of meeting up with top lords Old Man Rich, Fulla, Fella, Austin and sampling the joys of The Crown Inn. Alas, Merk and Stav were not present to witness us trash the folk night in the back room, sing and play recorder very badly, spill red wine over innocent women, try to touch people's cocks and get into fights.

Brilliant.

Going back to Telford tomorrow and no doubt be back in the Crown on Monday for a few jars of fine ale/lager beer and a fist fight with a homophobe. As promised here is Ana blowing her nose...

And here is Kieran dressed as a bear...

We are so living the early years theatre dream.

To My Readers!

Hello.

Some of you may have noticed that I have not been commenting on your blogs.

This is not because I am a wanker but because I have switched to Blogger Beta which means that, unless you have activated Google based comments on your blog (or have 'Other' option activated), I can't leave you a note.

Apologies.

I am reading.

And while you're at it, upgrade to Blogger Beta so I can leave comments.

Love to you all.

Redwings

This is where we fall from the trees

This is where the sky covers us

Daft killer of joy

You made a man out of me

And this is where the glass leaves the lens

Splintering a chemistry of friends

I'll treasure you always

You know I love you

And this is where we wake in the ditch

This is where our bodies sing no more

Fallen apples on the floor

Pecked at by redwings

So pour another whisky out for me

It'll be the last bottle we share

As I drift into nowhere

Know that I loved you

THIS IS THE NEWS!

The San Francisco Bay Guardian has printed a list of stories that seem to have been ignored over the past year. The story is gleaned from an annual list developed by Project Censored, a media research group out of Sonoma State University that tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters.

So, in no particular order, this is the news...

1. Net Regulation Confusion: The Supreme Court ruled that giant cable companies aren't required to share their wires with other Internet service providers. The issue was misleadingly framed as an argument over regulation, when it's really a case of the Federal Communications Commission and Congress talking about giving cable and telephone companies the freedom to control supply and content, a decision that could have them playing favorites and forcing consumers to pay to get information and services that currently are free.
2. Halliburton Sells Nuclear Technology to Iran: Halliburton sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
3. World Oceans in Extreme Danger: Governments deny global warming is happening as they rush to map the ocean floor in the hopes of claiming rights to oil, gas, gold, diamonds, copper, zinc and the planet's last pristine fishing grounds. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2005 found "the first clear evidence that the world ocean is growing warmer," including the discovery "that the top half-mile of the ocean has warmed dramatically in the past 40 years as the result of human-induced greenhouse gases."
4. Poverty on the Increase in the US: Hunger and homelessness rise in the United States, the Bush administration plans to get rid of a data source that supports this embarrassing reality, a survey that's been used to improve state and federal programs for retired and low-income Americans. In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to whack the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on mass layoffs and in 2004 and 2005 attempted to drop the bureau's questions on the hiring and firing of women from its employment data.
5. High-Tech Genocide in Congo: The ongoing genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not just a case of ugly tribal warfare. What's really at stake in this bloodbath is control of natural resources such as diamonds, tin, and copper, as well as cobalt, which is essential for the nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries and coltan and niobium, which is most important for the high-tech industries.
6. Federal Whistleblower Protection at Risk: Though record numbers of federal workers have been sounding the alarm on waste, fraud, and other financial abuse since George W. Bush became president, the agency charged with defending government whistleblowers has reportedly been throwing out hundreds of cases and advancing almost none. Statistics released at the end of 2005 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility led to claims that special counsel Scott Bloch, who was appointed by Bush in 2004, is overseeing the systematic elimination of whistleblower rights.
7. U.S. Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq: While reports of torture aren't new, the documents are evidence of using torture as a policy, raising a whole bunch of uncomfortable questions, such as: Who authorized such techniques? And why have the resulting deaths been covered up? Of the 44 death reports released under ACLU's FOIA request, 21 were homicides and eight appear to have been the result of these abusive torture techniques.
8. Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act: In 2005, the Department of Defense pushed for and was granted exemption from Freedom of Information Act requests, a crucial law that allows journalists and watchdogs access to federal documents. The ruling could hamper the efforts of groups like the ACLU, which relied on FOIA to uncover more than 30,000 documents on the US military's torture of detainees in Afghanistan Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, including the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
9. World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall: In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that the wall Israel is building deep into Palestinian territory should be torn down. Instead, construction of this cement barrier, which annexes Israeli settlements and breaks the continuity of Palestinian territory, has accelerated. In the interim, the World Bank has come up with a framework for a Middle Eastern Free Trade Area, which would be financed by the World Bank and built on Palestinian land around the wall to encourage export-oriented economic development. But with Israel ineligible for World Bank loans, the plan seems to translate into Palestinians paying for the modernization of checkpoints around a wall that they've always opposed, a wall that will help lock in and exploit their labor.
10. Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians: At the end of 2005, U.S. Central Command Air Force statistics showed an increase in American air missions, a trend that was accompanied by a rise in civilian deaths thanks to increased bombing of Iraqi cities.

Have a nice day. I'm off to Telford to finish the tour of Dream Come Out To Play.

Iraq: Same as it Ever Was

In the ever changing reasons given for the invasion of Iraq, ever changing because many of them proved to be false, the coalition of the willing settled on regime change. Never mind that Saddam Hussein used to be a regional leader they supported and turned a blind eye to his leadership style, things had moved on, so his brutal regime was held up as a reason for the invasion.

So it's interesting to hear that just over three years after Saddam's removal, mass executions are back, not just by insurgents, but by the Iraqi government.

YAY!

It's like Saddam has never been away, as Iraq's new government announced that it had hanged 27 prisoners convicted of terror and criminal charges.

"Mass executions at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, which has several gallows erected in the execution chamber, were suspended after coalition-led troops overthrew Saddam three years ago. The death penalty was re instituted in 2004, and yesterday's executions took place just days after control of Abu Ghraib was handed over to the Iraqi authorities."

So...mass executions done by Saddam: BAD, mass executions done by new Iraqi government: GOOD. Got that?

Today is the five year anniversary of 11/9 (please note correct formatting of date) and what I want to know is...

WHY HAVEN'T THEY CAUGHT THE BAD MAN THAT MADE THE POOR EAGLE CRY?

Little Girl

Little girl, you're getting out of hand
Getting out of hand
I think I'm going to lose you now
Oh little girl, you know me too well anyway
Too well every day
I'm going home
I'm going beneath the stars
I'm going under the soil again
And I won't be back in a long time so get out
Get out of this old house
Before I burn myself down
I wouldn't want to cause you anything
That might break your lovely face
Into a thousand shattered china pieces
In this broken world made up of broken pieces

The Story of the Boy who Dressed Like a Moose to Make a Girl Smile

There was this boy and he met this girl, who he thought was the most beautiful he'd ever seen and he thought that she was amazing because she seemed to be from a place where he'd like to spend his whole life.

But the more he got to know the girl, the more he couldn't help but notice all the sadness that sat deep inside of her and this sadness made him wonder why a girl like her should ever be in pain. The boy decided to do something about it.

So the boy went to the nearest fancy dress store and bought himself a moose costume, to this day he has no idea why he choose a moose or why, for that matter, he thought that dressing up would do the trick but that's what he did.

The next time he saw the girl he wore his brand new moose costume, he was very nervous because he was worried she would think he was weird but when the girl saw him dressed like a moose she smiled and then she started to laugh and the boy noticed that when the girl was happy she was even more beautiful and even more amazing.

Whenever the girl got sad, the boy would appear in his moose costume and make her laugh and lighten her heart just enough to take the ache away. This made the boy so happy and made him forget that he was even dressed like a moose and all the people stared at him and made fun of him or called him names.

One day, when the boy was walking home, he asked himself a question he'd never dare ask before: "Why do I do this for her?" and then, to his surprise, he answered his own question: "Because I love her."

Essex Girls

Saturday night, I had the pleasure of the company of good friends and a night out in my endz, which for those of you that don't know is in the county of Essex.

Now Essex females (from this point on, hereby referred to as Essex Girls) have a bit of reputation as seriously sexy ladies with a lot of dirty love to give to the right man, it's one of the joys of living in Loughton that an absolute bevy of these beauties decorate the local area.

Last night we encounted some of the finest specimens of Essex Girls I've seen in a long time, when my friends and I patronised the Nu Bar, it was chocker block with high heels, short skirts and blond hair.

It was a hoedown of the highest order.

GOD BLESS ESSEX AND ALL WHO SAIL IN HER!

A Return To American Poverty

I've already written about poverty in the United States and also poverty in the United Kingdom but an excellent post over at Annotated Life has presented me with some more facts that I'd like to share, as I think they deserve a wider audience and wider dissemination; so I'll paraphrase them here but for full details go over to the full post.

Poverty levels in the US remain unchanged, highlighting a stubborn underclass that no social programs can seemingly reach, either that or they are being ignored, a voiceless, oppressed section of the American cultural make-up, an unwelcome reminder that the greatest nation in the world can still not eradicate poverty.

37 million Americans are living in poverty, 12.6 percent of the population. Child poverty by official measure continues to be much higher than the overall poverty rate. In 2005, just under 13 million children, or one in six, lived below the poverty line and for those children living with a single mother, 42.8 percent were in poverty, compared to 8.5 percent in married households. This is in the most advanced nation in the world and is clearly, totally unacceptable.

Crucially, and oft forgotten, are the 13 million Americans living just above the poverty line with a further 49.3 million people who are within 125 percent of poverty.

Why is this important?

I think that the measure of any great nation is how it treats those who are the most vulnerable, the most in need, especially its children, its future, who are going without food, shelter and education.

These people cannot be dismissed as lazy, as welfare scroungers, these are the unwanted reminder that all is not well with the American Way (Trademark. All Rights Reserved) and that action needs to be taken to eradicate poverty in all its forms.