ANONYMOUS

be warned
this post may well infect your computer
and automatically be forwarded to all of your contacts
its purpose is to hack into the servers of those corporations
who have withdrawn their support
for a well-known transparency activism organisation
so do not read this post
and if you already have
close it down immediately
or you may be liable to arrest by the us government...!

JULIAN

Julian, Julian
Tell me was it a set-up?
What is it like in Wandsworth?
Will there be no let-up?

Julian, what have you started?
Julian strikes fear into the heart of power

Julian, Julian
What have you set in motion?
As the wounded beast bears its teeth
Among the commotion

Julian, what have you started?
Julian strikes fear into the heart of power

Fighting for transparency
Courting more controversy
You sacrifice your liberty
To save the sins of humanity

Julian, Saint Julian
Tell me is it a witch-hunt?
Will downing you on the ducking stool
Prove that your innocent?

Julian, what have you started?
Julian strikes fear into the heart of power

IMPERMANENCE

dust gathers imperceptibly
a silent decay
metal tarnishes
mould forms
tiny cracks open up
dirt collects on the mirror glass
impermanence is permanent

SHE TELLS ME

she tells me in a cheerful and spirited voice free of bitterness
she tells me she entered the uk as an asylum seeker
she tells me she has no passport or official status
she tells me she is not permitted to work in this country
she tells me she fled somalia at the age of 5 or 6
she tells me she saw things that a small child should not see
she tells me how piles of corpses littered the streets of the city
she tells me how heads were severed from bodies
she tells me how her mother tried to cover her curious eyes
she tells me how her father struggled to explain what had happened
she tells me how they reached the kenyan border on foot
she tells me how she went to yemen to train as a doctor
she tells me how it was too expensive to pay to remain there
she tells me how her parents live in a united nations refugee camp
she tells me how her father needs urgent treatment for parkinson's disease
she tells me somalia is a lawless state where violence is entrenched
she tells me she would dearly love to go back as a doctor to help her people

TWO KINDS OF SNOW

as i always tell the woodle when she complains
there are two very different kinds of snow
first there's the fine powdery stuff that has been falling this week
it's crisp underfoot, relatively 'dry' and falls in colder weather
marvellous for sledging and hopeless for making snowmen
then there's the coarser stickier stuff
it crumples underfoot, is wetter and turns to slush more easily
not so good for sledging as the sledge gets stuck in it
but great for making snowballs, igloos and snowmen
because the snow naturally binds together
snow on the ground can move from one kind to another as the temperature varies
i wonder if anybody else classifies snow this way?

HATE BREEDS HATE

i watched a disturbing documentary last night at ma and pa's
it traced the run-up to the may general election
when nick griffin and several local councillors stood for the bnp in barking
in opposition to the new labour candidates
including sitting mp margaret hodge
it was well crafted
it told its own story without the need for a voiceover
pieced together from short interviews with the major protagonists
occasional insightful off-the-record remarks
and fly-on-the-wall fragments
interspersed with footage of tense street scenes
full of aggro, unpleasantness and malice
bnp candidates being spat and sworn at by aggressive local youths
before eventually retaliating and weighing in with kicks and punches
amongst the nastiness there were some genuinely moving moments
the tearful father, a bnp supporter, who breaks down in tears
after he learns of the death of his nineteen-year-old son
killed while serving in afghanistan
two somali asylum-seekers, a mother and a son
tell of how they fled to britain after their husband/father was murdered
a mum permanently holed up on the umpteenth floor of a council tower block sobs as she talks of being forgotten
of how her small child has nowhere to play outdoors...
next to the nasty, petty, spiteful, crass thuggishness and ignorance on general display
and the sense of entitlement by dint of skin colour or genes
the new labour people look whiter than white
though one bnp policy does stick out from the general squalor like a sore thumb: the "bring our boys home from afghanistan" strapline
which sadly none of the main parties are willing to subscribe to
during the muted commercial breaks
the three of us exchange reactions
mum has a certain sympathy with elements of the bnp's rationale
the "we should look after our own" argument
it's a perpetual area of disagreement in our discussions
then there's a surreal moment during one of the breaks
when mum casually reveals that her father was briefly a member of the national front
(back in the late sixties or early seventies)
i guess there was a certain logic to this affiliation
as he lived and ran a business in an area of brum
largely taken over my the immigrant population from the fifties onwards
but it does make me wonder what he would have thought of a korean
(and potentially a burmese-indian) marrying into the family!

FLOW

at one with the flow of time
trimming the garden hedge
cycling sedately through a snowy landscape
typing steadily away at a computer keyboard
composing the melody to a new song at the piano
cobbling together a piece of poetry

NOWNESS

the present moment
always here
but so hard to find
a cinderella of the mind
a poor relation
relegated to the wings
as the mind pores obsessively over past events
interpreting and analysing what no longer exists
or projecting an imagined future onto its internal movie screen
a 24/7 running documentary of what is past
and what is yet to come
meanwhile in the backround
untroubled
a naked luminous presence remains hidden
buried under layers of winter clothing
waiting to be appreciated