E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

  ON BEING KINGS OF LEON   Here’s what no one says: It’s hard to be a man these days; Probably harder not to be, To be some other identity, But that’s their story, and good luck To them, but if we’re about saying Truths, then this is one, just the same: When I was born I was slapped With a father’s name, But no fathering came to me. At least none I could see. The car I could have driven Remained locked; the golf course I might have mastered with a steadying Grip is wintering under ignorance. I barely know how to drink. Watching the new Kings of Leon Video, shot to look resonant of An age when black and white imagery Was meaningful, it is hurtful To sense how little these four white Men have left, apparently more sober now, About their business with a parental sense Something else is more valuable Than backstage rotgut and upfront groupies. Maybe. I see men sweating, ageing, growing beards And bellies, the look of the lock...

  The idylls of the fool – 5 sonnets and a coda.   Nothing is convenient, and there is never A good time to be sacrificed to the gods Of fame’s indifferent gluttony. As The epitome of the discardable, I’m not for recycling, a wrapper For a sweet invented by pacifists, Now owned by war-makers. I cavort in a high-ceilinged vacuum, A dying king’s court is barely ideal For hijinks. Still, playful idolatries, Sidelong glances, petty affairs Pass the time between numb life And a lavish funeral ceremony That will bankrupt the next potentate.   This kingdom buries their entertainers With the pharaoh, I’m date-stamped, And due for a tomb without song. Strumming my lyre, winking at a princess, Few if any spy my misfortunes, Being squat, secondary, an epiphenomenon. You may think being a cut-up cut-rate Trickster in motley is a good gig, Complete with belled cap for a wig, As I take innumerable swigs of mead, Have little need for...

New Spring Poem in 33 Couplets   Spring is the word again. Spring is a happening waiting   to accident. It surprises by always showing up. Spring is your best lover,   the one you turn to in the night to remember how good things can be.   Spring is the opposite of an ending. Spring contains a spark plug, a paradox   and a big box of matches. Spring dances drunk at a wedding   between the sky and earth. Spring is every god at once.   Spring is the Shakespeare of seasons. Spring votes   for the sun. Before spring is only everything still to play for.   Spring does what it says on the tin. Spring is an end   of the middle about to begin. Spring wears a gold ring   on every wee finger. Spring owes us money. Spring always pays   its debts. Spring is a reliable witness. Spring is uncontrollable   science on the floor. Spring is alive and kicking at the...

The only good news of late is perhaps that Joe Biden survived the inauguration and is all steam ahead with grown-up-in-the Room where it happens. There is not so much elsewhere. That is probably unfairly negative. I am now going to talk mainly about the UK at the moment. People here were broadly looking forward to 2021, and held high hopes for a return to 'normal' around 'Easter'. This is the sort of time frame the government had been talking up, around the time we all scaled back 'Christmas' to a lump of coal in a dank cellar, sipping vinegar from a damp sponge. That was before the 2020 Law kicked in - if shit can go sideways strange and fast, it will, man. So it has. Now, we have been told by ashen faced politicos to expect a staycation summer, and not much open until 'summer'. Meanwhile, Glasto and James Bond have been cancelled or postponed, precisely as they were at this time last year. Like last year, this one now feels far less upbeat and certai...

As this blog warned a few weeks ago, this was never going to be a period of calm. Unexpectedly, Brexit trade was negotiated speedily, and is not the issue. However, in the UK, a new total lockdown occasioned by a rampant new strain killing 1000 a day, and in the US, a president amok, powered for 12 more days, have made the anglo-sphere shaky, to say the least. I now turn to the events yesterday on Capitol Hill. There has been some hyperbole, but most of the claims for the historical moment are on the money. This blog long expected a 'Reichstag' moment from the president, what is surprising is how haplessly he unleashes, and then passively leashes the dogs of chaos back in. He seems the Hamlet of coups. A bolder, smarter demagogue would have yesterday declared the Insurrection Act, called out the army, and suspended all rights, annulling the election results, and getting sworn in by a flunky, while launching wars against enemies. That's what Augustus , more or less did, at t...

Without bravado, I want to thank God, and my friends, human and otherwise, and family, that I made it through. So many didn't. If I have one thing I am proud of this year, it is two things - tied - having written some poems that may last about our current world (they likely won't) - and keeping the Black spring press group alive and going for one more year - thereby keeping dozens of writers and books in print, and assisting designers, editors, proofreaders, printers, writers, and others, to make some money to feed their families in very uncertain times. I'd note the sad deaths of Roddy Lumsden , and Leah Fritz , friends and poets, at the start of the year; and also note how so many icons of my youth, from Diana Rigg to Sean Connery , also died this year; up to the recent awful news about Pierre Cardin, and   Jean Valentine , which I heard today. The books I commissioned and published this year were meant to celebrate frontline workers, champion freedom of expression, and...

As the planets, literally align, in a once in 800 year way, the UK experiences its worst economic downturn in 300 years, the world struggles with the most grim global pandemic in 100 years, and Brexit returns the UK to where it was 40 or more years ago, it is impossible to claim 2020 is not a unique year, a unique moment. If one adds the heat of the planet is the most extreme it has been for many centuries, it is more striking, still. One can also add that AI and robotics, gene-editing, and cyber-attacks on the pentagon, new cultural ways of identifying humans, and potent generational conflicts last seen 60 years ago, further illuminate, and mark as era-defining, our moment. But that's for history to decide. What we know now is this - Trump is still president for about a month more; the darkest days of the year are the next few; Brexit is down to a tight deadline of a fortnight that cannot go further; and, before the vaccines are unrolled by 'Easter' or 'the summer...