Louise Stothard.
The Exam. (You may turn your papers over now).
Forlorn excitement follows us
all to the marked down rows.
It is May, 1967
and the desks are warmwood,
giving off varnish.
Faces give off 'I will fail'
exchanges.
In the heat of these moments
we will give off adrenalin
like love for two segmented hours,
Either;
Or.
It will be written in stone.
Stewarding the aisles,
passing grave as an ocean liner
down the Suez canal,
Miss Joynson's
Geographical credentials
have finally
come into their own.
She will sweep back and forth
at five knots per hour
for the duration.
The Quink engravings
of S.A. luvs Peter
are also scrawled across the
Corn and Pig Belt;
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta.
The Great Lakes are
mnemonically inked
onto someone's wrist;
(Some Men Have Even Jumped Over).
The roughwood patches
of desklids
are now soaked
in history,
in an ancient craft.
They'll mark our particular toil,
our studied slant
on the Corn Laws.
When we rise, doomladen, from desks,
they'll have been our talismans too,
reminding us of glorious possibilities.
The papers, downfaced,
hinting faintly in back-to-front
language are white as sheets,
bearing promises.
The A4 surprise packages
are at least of equal merit,
equal perplexity to one and all.
That's the whole thing.
We'll hover, for those first flightless seconds
as Kestrels over prey freshly
swooped upon. Dive.
We'll digest the contents later.
The second hand leads us on.
The clock winks its hour markers
at us, always beating us to it.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
The heads in front are all primed,
ready to go off in a slow-timed manner.
Something, some force will finish
off their work to the good.
You may be sure of that.
Miss Henthorne's dark beehive
is more lustrous than ever
on this occasion.
Her Angora and pearls
her folded arms,
her History,
her rebellious thoughts
her affections and yours
are one.
Her intent and love,
her passing fancy
are all passing you the nod.
She knows about you.
That's the main thing.
Across the Canal that's wide enough
for thoughts not to leap over,
your parallel pupil's
shirt cuffs are crisp,
buttoned down,
giving nothing away.
You see her ingenuity too,
peripherally,
because it's a well-known fact
that she shines at Maths.
That's the whole thing.
Two desks ahead of her
and hallowed there
where she is ensconced
is the golden girl you love.
You may stray away
to longing for her,
and the devil-may-care
flick of her tawny hair,
hair that's shining now
with the brilliance
of at least ten colours;
it won't help you.
You may squint at the upside-down Cyrillic
of the questions
Brenda Munford is hunched over
so lovingly
as much as you like.
It won't help you.
You may turn your papers over now.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Vuvuzelas ...18.06.2010.
Vuvuzela...the new buzz word (now the W.C's weighing upon us) is a plastic trumpet that is very loud. Everyone in S A.'s got one and they're gonna blow'em long and hard. Win or lose. The vuvuzela blowers are not saying anything. Just adding more plastic to the ocean that's probably much larger than the permanently welling BP oil ocean. Buffalo herds on the move would be making much more sense. Sainsbury's is selling them to make extra bucks.
Hornets fill nest-like
stadia.Their probosci
make noise not honey.
Hornets fill nest-like
stadia.Their probosci
make noise not honey.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
A case of dyslexia.
Last year a question mark
hung over my health.
Over the summer term,
I was subjected to acute and grave accents.
It seemed that a bullet point
had passed through my index finger,
becoming lodged in my spinal column.
This was a case of Dyslexia.
I was given a script, classified,
then moved to the editorial ward.
My writing came to a full stop.
Fortunately, a rather bold-faced,
freelance surgeon managed to
insert a file into the margin of
my spine, bypassing the literal artery
and hacking away the bullet point.
Since he had decided that mine was a
lower case he left me on a billboard,
covered in a broadsheet
and hooked up to a strap-line.
I regained consciousness in
the glare of the headlines.
After hypertexting for a while,
I calmed down.
Eventually I slipped into a comma,
ending up with a semi-colon.
It had been reported
on the message board
that my tabloid gland
was hyped-up, that I had
narrowly missed a deadline
in the gutter press but that,
after a further operation
and two cuttings
to remove hard copy,
I was feeling just
CAPITAL.
hung over my health.
Over the summer term,
I was subjected to acute and grave accents.
It seemed that a bullet point
had passed through my index finger,
becoming lodged in my spinal column.
This was a case of Dyslexia.
I was given a script, classified,
then moved to the editorial ward.
My writing came to a full stop.
Fortunately, a rather bold-faced,
freelance surgeon managed to
insert a file into the margin of
my spine, bypassing the literal artery
and hacking away the bullet point.
Since he had decided that mine was a
lower case he left me on a billboard,
covered in a broadsheet
and hooked up to a strap-line.
I regained consciousness in
the glare of the headlines.
After hypertexting for a while,
I calmed down.
Eventually I slipped into a comma,
ending up with a semi-colon.
It had been reported
on the message board
that my tabloid gland
was hyped-up, that I had
narrowly missed a deadline
in the gutter press but that,
after a further operation
and two cuttings
to remove hard copy,
I was feeling just
CAPITAL.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Wisdom of Apple. 14.06.2010.
Sales of theApple Ipad are chugging along nicely until the next big thing/fad/pad comes along. You've got to worry when David Hockney buys one, though in his slightly grudging, satirical Yorkshire disdain he opines that it will probably be supplanted soon by a wafer-thin one, light as paper.
Apple boasts that the Ipad 'contains more books than you can read in a lifetime' even though people who buy Ipads would largely scorn the idea of spending their precious time reading books as there are so many other apps. to choose from ( games, more games, movies, flight information and so on) and may never have seen the inside of a library, let alone a book!
My Mum read more books
a day than they'll want to read
in Ipad's lifetime.
Apple boasts that the Ipad 'contains more books than you can read in a lifetime' even though people who buy Ipads would largely scorn the idea of spending their precious time reading books as there are so many other apps. to choose from ( games, more games, movies, flight information and so on) and may never have seen the inside of a library, let alone a book!
My Mum read more books
a day than they'll want to read
in Ipad's lifetime.
BAE Killing Systems 08.06.2010.
BAE Systems, the engineering contractors who export things to kill people in other people's countries for lots of money (also known as manufacturing exports) is busy making deadlier bullets, after complaints that they're passing through the unarmoured bodies of often lean Taliban troops, only wounding (damn) and therefore perhaps not killing them. The new model bullet is longer-ranging so you can kill at a discreet distance and not get killed yourself, you see. The present bullets discharge lead particles which can (God forbid) poison the shooter.
Who says Britain has no manufacturing industries anymore? This one, and money-making and lending are doing very nicely, thankyou.
BAE makes the
bullets for you to fire much
more ethically.
A bullet is a
bullet is a bullet is
a killing device.
Killing fields will be
much more pleasant without all
those half-dead folk.
Who says Britain has no manufacturing industries anymore? This one, and money-making and lending are doing very nicely, thankyou.
BAE makes the
bullets for you to fire much
more ethically.
A bullet is a
bullet is a bullet is
a killing device.
Killing fields will be
much more pleasant without all
those half-dead folk.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Letter to Majed
February, 2010.
Dear Majed,
I am sending you the poem I wrote several years after my
father died. Needless to say, I loved him and think of him every day, as I do
my dear Mum, who died last year. The poem is just as much for her, as for your friends and fellow countrymen, as much for the loss of anyone you love.
My parents were modest, intelligent and compassionate. Like you, they had
both been teachers.
father died. Needless to say, I loved him and think of him every day, as I do
my dear Mum, who died last year. The poem is just as much for her, as for your friends and fellow countrymen, as much for the loss of anyone you love.
My parents were modest, intelligent and compassionate. Like you, they had
both been teachers.
For my father.
All effort, doubt, consideration
are banished to the greater silence,
availing us nothing,
availing you nothing.
Matters you would fix
stray away, undetermined.
The slant intent of your signature
is laid to waste-
though how could we ever think it would be?
The purpose of your thought in that last written instruction,
emphasized as you were failing
over and over again
is kept in the bureau, the mind.
Now has come the yawning, deafening silence,
the relentlessness of a world
going on from horror to horror,
the once-charmed carriage-clock
beating out the dead hour, demented;
a wound-up thing set aside
to carry on its dull duty;
the kitchen drawer roaring
where it used to draw warmly
and the fruitless imperative
of the chaffinch's song.
Everything you loved
we loved too.
Love breaks the heart
when we cannot share it,
crying in mute sufferance,
brimming over the full vessel,
or cracking it, remaining
though the living world
may banish us.
How do we throw love away?
Love to your family and the pupils you teach,
Lou.
Princely duties. 10.06.10.
Sir,
in a sneering 'Commentary' (Times 10.06) Oliver Kamm accuses Prince Charles of being unscientific and of 'mumbo-jumbo' in addressing the causes of environmental degradation and economic collapse head-on.
It is precisely because the Prince identifies 'you and me' and our desire to consume as the cause that his observations are so compelling, scientific, you might say. It is we who objectify Nature as the enemy, or at the very least as a thing to be put to our own use.
Neither can Mr. Kamm refute, scientifically, the Prince's proposition that 'the desire for financial profit ignores spiritual teachings.'
If only other public figures, whether scientific or otherwise) would say what the Prince, with wisdom and courage (yes, it takes courage, Mr.Kamm) dares to say i.e. that 'it would help if the world reduced its desire to consume.'
Prince Charles does have a duty to foster debate and insight through the public arena as well as through his own work. He does so with a brilliance, a passion, a sense of responsibility that is truly inspiring.
Or would Oliver Kamm rather he had no opinion?
Yours,
Louise Stothard.
in a sneering 'Commentary' (Times 10.06) Oliver Kamm accuses Prince Charles of being unscientific and of 'mumbo-jumbo' in addressing the causes of environmental degradation and economic collapse head-on.
It is precisely because the Prince identifies 'you and me' and our desire to consume as the cause that his observations are so compelling, scientific, you might say. It is we who objectify Nature as the enemy, or at the very least as a thing to be put to our own use.
Neither can Mr. Kamm refute, scientifically, the Prince's proposition that 'the desire for financial profit ignores spiritual teachings.'
If only other public figures, whether scientific or otherwise) would say what the Prince, with wisdom and courage (yes, it takes courage, Mr.Kamm) dares to say i.e. that 'it would help if the world reduced its desire to consume.'
Prince Charles does have a duty to foster debate and insight through the public arena as well as through his own work. He does so with a brilliance, a passion, a sense of responsibility that is truly inspiring.
Or would Oliver Kamm rather he had no opinion?
Yours,
Louise Stothard.
Savaging the fox
Sir,
Janice Turner ('Urban foxes: a brush with danger' Times 08.06.) plays to the tabloid myth of fox as child molester, one whose hysteria is bound to result in the depraved practice of urban fox-hunting, in which the 'sport' is pursued not with red coat and hound but with pet dog, marksman or paid assassin.A fox was recently found burned to death in the picture postcard village of Thornton Hough. Two were mauled by pet dogs in separate parks also on the Wirral. These incidents preceded 'foxville', the incident to which Ms. Turner's article refers.
In the greater scheme of things, and as Ms.Turner herself admits, after giving the urban fox a savaging, there are very much greater threats to the person from domestic animals, dogs in particular. She cites Dr. Phil Baker, Lecturer in Conservation Ecology at Reading University who points out that attacks by a fox are rare in comparison with those by dogs and, perhaps more surprisingly, by cats. There have been many cases of savage attacks by dogs on young children in the last few years, with several fatalities and scores of minor attacks by unleashed dogs in urban areas.
The stoking up of prejudice matters because it may add a baying chorus of urban dwellers to the pro-fox-hunting lobby and because David Cameron is known to support a repeal of the Hunting Ban.
Yours,
L. Stothard
Janice Turner ('Urban foxes: a brush with danger' Times 08.06.) plays to the tabloid myth of fox as child molester, one whose hysteria is bound to result in the depraved practice of urban fox-hunting, in which the 'sport' is pursued not with red coat and hound but with pet dog, marksman or paid assassin.A fox was recently found burned to death in the picture postcard village of Thornton Hough. Two were mauled by pet dogs in separate parks also on the Wirral. These incidents preceded 'foxville', the incident to which Ms. Turner's article refers.
In the greater scheme of things, and as Ms.Turner herself admits, after giving the urban fox a savaging, there are very much greater threats to the person from domestic animals, dogs in particular. She cites Dr. Phil Baker, Lecturer in Conservation Ecology at Reading University who points out that attacks by a fox are rare in comparison with those by dogs and, perhaps more surprisingly, by cats. There have been many cases of savage attacks by dogs on young children in the last few years, with several fatalities and scores of minor attacks by unleashed dogs in urban areas.
The stoking up of prejudice matters because it may add a baying chorus of urban dwellers to the pro-fox-hunting lobby and because David Cameron is known to support a repeal of the Hunting Ban.
Yours,
L. Stothard
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