There will never be peaceful coexistence with fundamentalism, Ken, unless it entails complete acquiescence. By its very definition, there can be no compromise with something fundamental.
The situation in Aleppo is not quite this, however. The rebel forces (by media reports seem to include fundamentalists) but also a disparate alliance of regime opponents.
I don't profess to know an answer; I do know that we should have intervened in 2013.
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
"FACT" ISIS (Sunni) believe that Shias are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam.
Intervention by us western infidels will only delay the eventual establishing of an Eastern civilisation. Which not unlike ours will be built on a foundation of slaughtered millions and take a thousand years.
It's a shit World!!
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Sat 17th Dec 2016 17:33
I see the long shadow of loss Michael and a hope of reconciliation . How many families have been split asunder in the long quest of nations to fulfil themselves? More than is bearable. A very stirring poem .
Ray
Comment is about The Magnitude of Love (blog)
Original item by Noetic-fret!
Many thanks, Jeff. It would be lovely if no-one ever needed to go to war. Unfortunately we sometimes do. 2013 was a case in point. We didn't and the resultant tragedy of Aleppo is plain to see.
As the man said, "Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace".
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Grandson of a coal miner.....what happened to me? Jeff....
Comment is about Which Dick Ordered the Caramel Latte? (blog)
Original item by Jeff
Please don't try looking in Dundee or Teesside.......be easier to locate the centre of the universe armed with a hammer & ball of wool.
Ps I have no idea what I'm talking about, but smiled when I did......thanks for the inspiration......?
Comment is about WANTED - 65 VIRGINS (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Captured the sentiment precisely! From my Punk days onwards I've always enjoyed politically inspired words, whether it be poetry or music. This is simply fantastic.
War ain't like it is on in the movies or on the news. Sold lies and the end user is some innocent human. The west is the ultimate Apex Predator, demonising, criminalising & like pigs at a trough.
& to quote the late Bill Hicks " how low is a countries self-esteem we need a war to feel good about ourselves"? Makes sense.
Take care.......Jeff.....
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Vivisection - no moral argument & unessessry evil.
Comment is about This isn't what life had planned for me (blog)
Original item by Jeff
Animal lover myself, & enjoyed this. Really liked the line about second cousin......Jeff...
Comment is about Hong Kong Monkey (blog)
Original item by Bill Lythgoe
Nice, really nice. Jeff
Comment is about Coming back to you (blog)
Original item by Alexander Watson
Look at all the fab former names listed here. Wow! I'll try to catch up with some more reading, but short on time now.
Regards, and Happy Christmas,
Cynthia
Comment is about Rodney Wood (poet profile)
Original item by Rodney Wood
Thanks for that, Lancs.
Yes I understand that people read political poetry but the point I was trying to make was that we each only hear the politics and not the poetry.
I can best explain this by a question. I suspect that like myself you lean leftwards; so which of these poets who are right-wing do you enjoy?
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Ditto from me! I had a 'friend' who was a friend only because she had comic books stashed under her bed. I would make a little conversation and read like a maniac. Even at seven, I was not proud of myself, but the lure and reward was too great to quibble about.
A delightful poem.
Comment is about NOW WHEREFORE STOPP'ST THOU ME? (blog)
Original item by Rodney Wood
Good thinking. Sorts out a lot, doesn't it?
Comment is about Perspective (blog)
Original item by Wonderer
Happy Christmas to you and your family, Michael. Peace be with you all.??
Comment is about The Magnitude of Love (blog)
Original item by Noetic-fret!
Natasha Bowman
Sat 17th Dec 2016 06:59
Wow this I really good. I mean yeah there are mistakes but I can tell you wrote this in the mood. I like it, it's lonely, it's depressing, it's insecure it's awesome.???
Comment is about Who Cares? (blog)
Original item by Amber18_
elPintor
Fri 16th Dec 2016 23:57
Thanks for your comments, LCPTB and Ray.
Golijov has been a favorite of mine for several years now--in fact, since I happened upon this very piece. The elevated blend of folk traditions heard in many of his compositions (Arabic, Sephardic, Yiddish, Spanish, Latin American) is very attractive to me. I'm glad you both enjoyed it.
elP
Comment is about behemoth (blog)
Original item by nunya
thanks again MC Newberry
Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
This piece really gets under your skin with the depiction of simple feelings so hard to express and it succeeds eminently with its comparisons focussing in on the great voids and challenges that we must face.
Excellent and moving Tom
Comment is about The Letting Go (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
Days of extreme bravery and risk taking and blind determination when the rewards were great - a cleft stick when viewed with the benefit of hindsight with the monumental consequences all too plain to see and feel, and thanks to the internet right into the homes of most of us.
Apart from that, a thoroughly good read with a strong dash of the Empire still echoing when I was a boy, Martin.
Ray
Comment is about Misty Islands (blog)
Original item by Martin Elder
A very worthy and fine poem indeed that seeks to describe the indescribable and like all profound questioning asks us all to ponder horrors and hopes elP
The music is so perfectly matched.
Ray
Comment is about behemoth (blog)
Original item by nunya
Hi again Ray, sorry for late reply, been getting new book up and running! All sorted now and pleased with it ?
In answer to your question, no dont get many Southerners up here, few from the midlands! We do most of our gigs at Bolton socialist club now, Phoenix Nights club St Gregs is still there but not been to a gig for ages there.
Will be hoping to venture out again to some new venues next year, prob mainly up north I think but one day hope to perform somewhere south of the Watford Gap!
All the best Ray, Jeffarama! ?
Comment is about Jeffarama! (poet profile)
Original item by Jeffarama!
LOL is some little cutie trying to pull you out of it
Comment is about GRUMP LAND (blog)
Original item by lynn hahn
Hi JL...be of good cheer!
Remember when the world was engaged in a great world
war, yet Christmas was celebrated unstintingly by those
affected and gave comfort and consolation to those
most in need of it. The films and songs produced during
that perilous time are still with us - and will remain so.
MC
Comment is about jean lucy thompson (poet profile)
Original item by jean lucy thompson
Hear-hear, Jack Looking back myself as a "war baby" who
grew up in the real austerity of food rationing and an
absence of the all-embracing safety net of social support,
I recall my mother going out to work late in life during her
second marriage after bearing 7 children to a prematurely
dead husband (my own father) and being happy to
continue until made redundant through age. I have no
memory of talk of hardship...everyone seemed to be in
the same situation in our neck of the woods and life
was lived without either great expectations or over insistent complaint. We really did just get on with it!
PERHAPS THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE WAS THAT
THEN WE LOOKED OUTWARDS WHEREAS TODAY THE OPPOSITE SEEMS TO BE THE CASE.
Comment is about A GOOD OR BAD PAST (blog)
Original item by Jack purvis
I'm sure none of us KNEW in 2013, Lancs, but events require us to make a call. The call we made was patently the wrong one.
"Sometimes Satan comes as a Man of Peace".
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Peace
Tormented child of war
travels in constant fear
even when told that
they will be spared
he watches his Mother
cry relentlessly for peace.
Merry Christmas to everyone at Stockport W O L X
Comment is about Stockport WoL (group profile)
Original item by Stockport WoL
So should we have intervened in 2013, Lancs, or, as we did, left the vacuum for the Russians to fill? That plan went well!
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
i think its ok the way it is to be honest.
weird rules (:
Comment is about sudden inspiration (blog)
Original item by ottica
like the dark humour in this too.
Comment is about Razors do get dull (blog)
Original item by Chunks and Marrow
i can relate to a lot of this.
thanks for sharing, Becky x
Comment is about Christmas cheer (blog)
Original item by Becky Bintus
To be honest there have been some totally forgetable Nobel laureates in the past so I don't really see the problem with Dylan getting it. At least his songs are memorable. And he's not the first songwriter either. That honour falls to the Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore, author of a set of songs, Gitangali, still sung in India to this day.
Comment is about Absent Dylan 'panned poetry gold', says Swedish critic at Nobel awards night (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Another cracker. Same sort of sense as the other one I commented on. You do wry very well ?
Comment is about It's their fault, darling (blog)
Original item by Chunks and Marrow
Excellent short piece. Clever, dark humour, with a rather lovely sense of ennui about it too ?
Comment is about Razors do get dull (blog)
Original item by Chunks and Marrow
Colin - indeed. I've done the same thing myself on someone's poem, then heard it and they've totally made it work. Individual emphasis and delivery make the world of difference ? As for the gig - it appeared to actually stun the audience. I think because I know the poem so well, I underestimate the impact it's going to have.
Martin - thank you so much, for your comment, and your understanding, and the work that you do. This poem was the story of a very dear friend of mine, and I felt like I had to tell his story so that other people understand that surface and appearance is never the whole truth.
Weird story - I wrote this after bumping into him for the first time in ages. He was looking really healthy (had been at death's door), and was writing poetry, and had changed so much. He was actually happy. Then I woke up a few days later feeling a very strong urge to write his story, so I did but changed the names, obviously. That night, I got into my dad's car, and his favourite band (Alex Harvey) were playing on the radio - which felt weird. Then a few weeks later, he was found dead in his house - smack overdose and infection. I had to identify him cos he had no one else. Coroner's report put his death at about the time I wrote the poem. Still gives me the shivers, that, and I'm still pissed off with him that he folded when he was doing so well. Still miss him too.
elPintor - I love Lucinda ? Thank you.
Comment is about No One Called You Gordon (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Thank you for your comment! It is meant to be "frown"!
Comment is about Christmas cheer (blog)
Original item by Becky Bintus
Claire,
I like the way you`ve aptly modernised the kings in the last line.
Comment is about Epiphany (blog)
Original item by Mrs Claire Baldry
Many thanks, each, for your thoughts.
Harry - I too am sure the issue has not played out by a long way yet in Syria. Indeed it is naive of us to think there is "a solution" to any of the Middle East's problems.
Suki - I am delighted to be proved wrong by you about my thoughts on political poetry. I have to say, though, you are very much the exception.
MC - I am as clouded in my thoughts on the Middle East as the rest of the world. But I am convinced the decision not to strike in 2013 was plainly and tragically wrong. "Sometimes the devil comes as a man of peace".
Just as an afterthought, Harry, I think the final lines in conventional rhythm and rhyme give the lie to the view that it is not a suitable vehicle for "weighty" poetry.
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Ian,
Pre-Christmas preparations have stopped me getting right back to this one.
I like the simplicity of this (the way it goes through the tale and gets back to the state of things on earth)
I like that `and then you die` at the end of stanza three, and the telling of the resurrection in the next. we tend- not so much to forget, as to ignore - the fact that - like Christ - we have to die first.
I also like the way your repeated `Just imagine` is directed at the reader. (your first four stanzas have established that Christ had had a bit of experience of the later ones)
What I think would have made it more (modernly?) powerful would have been a reference to the mental agony which culminated in Christ`s `why have you forsaken me`)
As a Christian I would balk at the `magic` bit. But this is as open-an-eyed exposure of what the manger scene was all ultimately about as you could get.
Thanks.
Comment is about Advent (blog)
Original item by Ian Whiteley
I must have been about 10 when I heard, blowin in the wind, the times they are a changing, and thought this is it, what I was waiting to hear. Although I didn't take up Dylan for a few more years. And a generation later, sitting in a London suburb garden with my son and one of his buddies, singing Positively 4th St. late, late at night. We all know all the words. It's a better life with Dylan. Literary giants press on my shelves, there isn't a nobel laureate among them I would put before Bob, and I don't reckon him a poet, by the way, that's another argument.
Comment is about Absent Dylan 'panned poetry gold', says Swedish critic at Nobel awards night (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Thank you! It is nice to know there are good poemhunters who tell when they see one!
Comment is about Fresh 2 decades later (blog)
Original item by Alem Hailu G/Kristos
I really like the imagery you use here. It really spoke to me as I read this having breakfast with it still dark outside. I'm not looking forward to those cold hands!
Comment is about Here Again (blog)
Original item by A.M. Clarke
I recall a poem from years ago following a similar style -
about not speaking up "(a WW2 item I think) in various
situations when people were being carted off by callous authority until finally "they came for me".
The Middle East is a tragic scenario but let's not forget
our own home suffering in war when our children and
other vulnerables perished by the thousand under air
attack across the land. Stoicism was the price
demanded - and the country and its people paid it.
The global media that exists now still appears to insist
that we have to take a "position" in conflicts wherever
they erupt, and we seem never to have enjoyed a real
peace since the Second World War. Perhaps due to a
political refusal to allow us to slip into a "Swiss-like"
existence of modest ambitions and prosperiity, insisting
instead on emulating their Empirical forebears by their
desire to strut the world stage and influence other
nations' existences (probably wishing they could send
a gunboat and wave a big stick at upstart malcontents across the globe).
When will we be allowed to live our lives free from the
envy or the egregious admonitions of the world and
its dog? Answers on the back of a stamp perhaps?!
Comment is about THE MASTERLY STRATEGY OF INACTIVITY (NOT IN MY NAME) (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
John Coopey
Sat 17th Dec 2016 19:32
You will note, Jeff, that my recruitment drive here on WOL has not been very successful. But it certainly seemed a better prospect than Dundee or Teesside.
Comment is about WANTED - 65 VIRGINS (blog)
Original item by John Coopey