Tackling intimidation, saving the Arctic

On Wednesday 18th September, 30 Greenpeace activitists took the Arctic Sunrise to campaign peacefully against Arctic oil drilling. The Russian authorities illegally seized the ship at gunpoint and have put all the activists in custody for 2 months without trial. This is supposedly to look into possible piracy charges, though of course the piracy was in the Russians' breaking of international maritime law by taking a vessel in international waters. It seems like a blatant threat to intimidate anyone else hoping to protest at Arctic oil exploration.

This is my personal blog, not a Greenpeace one, but I feel very strongly about this issue (as you may have gathered), so if you'd like to help, please write to the Russian Ambassador in London here, urging Russia to release the activists. If you'd like to share the link on Twitter, the hashtag is the title of the poem...

#freethearctic30

Small shoal,
thirty strong,
peaceful but determined
makes waves in Arctic waters
to save them from the sticky-black greed
of oil barons and boyars,
Gazprom’s oligarchic puppeteers
pulling whose strings
to toss aside the law of the sea,
summoning coastguards like mercenaries –
no pravda with these privateers –
to steal a ship at gun-and-knifepoint
then spill barrels of slick hypocrisy
as trumped-up piracy claims,
netting their catch to store
for months in cages without trial –
but these fish don’t just jerk on hooks,
they are the alumni of a worldwide school,
an academy of defiance
with voices (4 million and more)
unfettered by incarceration –
and they will be heard.

First time into the breach

Last night was interesting - the first time I've read at a poetry competition, and in a huge, splendid mediaeval barn. Though short-listed, I didn't win (the band liked it!), but it was an interesting experience, especially as the audience were very different from what I'm used to i.e. much more 'trad' Shakespeare fans (unsurprising as it was part of the Titchield Shakespeare Festival) - not like the audiences for the more contemporary fare I tend to go for. Saying that, I am partial to a bit o' Bard once in a while and I still like As You Like It, despite being taught it for O-level (not GCSE) English Lit, *ahem* years ago. So, with the competition themes in mind, and inspired by the 'All the world's a stage...' soliloquy, this is what I came up with and it seemed to go down well...

’69 – ‘13

Last year, prime-numbered age held sway,
since then some extra throat-beard grey,
shirt buttons slightly more tum-splayed,
maybe it’s time I was re-weighed.
Oh God, I’m 44.

On average I am past halfway,
it takes less beer ‘til bladdered spray,
and if hungover lose a day,
my liver yells at me ‘no way’.
Oh God, I’m 44.

These days, more trespass than affray,
older than pre-prison Krays,
once Dangermouse, now Colonel K,
or tatty-eared old tom-cat stray,
will my hair fall out with mange?
Oh God, I’m 44.

Docked my first iPod yesterday,
with Paypal not quite so au fait,
watched vinyl’s decline with dismay,
hookers my age carry change,
I fancy Bellatrix Lestrange,
Oh God, I’m 44.

Just twitched a rare Siberian Jay,
rewatched the Darling Buds of May,
but please no cocoa on a tray,
against the dying light I’ll rage,
find my As You Like It stage,
at least men don’t go through ‘The Change’,
Oh God, I’m 44.

‘Cos I still wield a wicked blade,
so far no urge to dress more staid
in crimplene slacks of dun-tan-beige,
I’d fear that mournful colour-change,
rather weekends spent in adult play
than tussling with cheap underlay –
I’ve never felt quite so alive,
I’ll soon be 45.

Here I am performing at the Festival.

A little more tolerance would be nice

You've probably heard about Russia's recent homophobic law-making; 'Rainbows over the Volga', my response in terms of what I find to be rather ironic imagery was posted here - and this post? Well, the lovely people at Rebelle Society have just added it to their website here with slightly different formatting.

On the polar parade

A giant mechanical polar bear - part of the Greenpeace #savethearctic campaign, as was the #iceclimb.

Arctic uproar

Aurora londonensis,
bigger than a double-decker,
solid-state roar
rumbles tarmac underpaw,
windblown,
rainswept,
driven by siege puppeteers
hauling like fjordsmen
overland to Byzantium,
she fears no melting floe
nor seal-blubber famine –
ice to the core,
her will is steel.
First Nations sing of lands lost
to oil-thirst,
crude greed,
pipelines drawn in the snow
to spill black bile,
bringing melancholy to the North,
fragmenting the white
for nothing more than
fatter spreadsheet totals
and dividends-in-suits.

A bit more elementalism

My second attempt at a form I've dubbed 'elementalism' for now - poems formed solely from the symbols of chemical elements.

BrITiSH CuISiNe

RuBBErY RaVIOLi,
RaINY BeAcH-CaFe,
PlaSTiC SeAtS,
TiNY SiNGe-BLaCK SAuSAgEs WITh SmAsH,
HP SauCe,
GeLaTiNoUS VINdAlOO,
LaRdY PIEs (ReHeAt) –
ThErE’s CaSH In CraP-InNA-tRaY,
CoRnErSHoP BOURbON,
HIPFLaSK,
ReHaB –
ReAl AlE’s NiCEr;
BY ONe A.m.
SNOW-WHITe BrITiSHErS
CHUNdEr CHIPS BY PuB,
UPCHUCK YUCK, CaUSe RuCKUS –
OthErS PReFEr
CrAcK-HoUSe WArEs,
CInNaMoN HAsHCaKEs
ChoCoLaTe MoNeY,
SmArTiEs.

Sometimes swearing is the only option

Current affairs: a UN housing expert urges the Tories to scrap the Bedroom Tax. The Tories, ratcheting up their arrogance from 'we're better than the proles' to 'we're more important than the UN' not only fail to comply, but actually demand an apology from the UN. Words almost fail me, but not quite...

Cunt-Tory Fried Britain

See the smarmy Colonel
fucking up the country with his
not-so-secret blend of
hatred, hurt and spite,
cronies and lies,
bedroom-taxing Mother Hubbard
until evicted and rehomed
in a small and leaky slipper,
kids taken into don’t-care,
cull/hunt/cut/shut,
cheap sell-offs
quick off-shore bucks for
self-servatives
touting the choice between private and death –
don’t get ill –
the NHS has been given away
in the latest round of
private-sector pass-the-parcel
where ATOS weigh in
and find anybody wanting,
rubber-stamp them ‘fit for work’ –
hopefully that’ll kill a few
who don’t vote Tory anyway.

A little more bro-etry

I was recently introduced to the concept of 'bro-etry' - poetry that speaks to blokes (they being a subset of 'men'). Here's something on this theme:

More Goldwing than Commando?

Old bikers maybe,
whose black t-shirts,
though sporting only the holes they were born with,
and not oil-soaked (or worse)
announce a liking
for Alien and Heath Ledger’s Joker
mostly unobscured by pony-tails
and heavy-metal beards.

Between sips and pots,
they reminisce about pool leagues past,
tut-tut dismay
at ale-stains on relaid baize
despite signs saying ‘no drinks here please’.

The louder one asks me what I’m writing;
it turns out he likes poetry
(even if he pretends it’s only
‘the-boy-stood-on-the-burning-deck’ variety)
and talks of folk-rock,
obscure bands and great nights out
in punky local venues –
it makes sense Blondie was his jukebox choice,
but INXS doesn’t fit
and as for Nickelback,
less said the better.

Recording them in biro scribbles,
I watch another frame fly by –
I thought they must be good
as, denims crisply laundered,
they brought their own brass-threaded
ash-grained cues in cases,
and at a quid a game,
it must be expensive
once you’re good at pool.

Measuring or obscuring depth

People's depths are so often hidden... audio version here.

Bathymetry

You are the shifting peat-water mosaic,
the ripples
with bright-white reflections,
the iridescent swirls of petrol,
the severed ROV umbilicus,

you are the anechoic tiles
baffling to sonar,
the rope, knotted at intervals
and lost overboard,

the sepia squirt
of a retreating cephalopod,

you are crude immersion-oil,
the tattooist’s needle-gun,
the final block of a pyramid
fitting razor-tight,

you are the historical weight
of De Profundis,
the sediments stirred up by my movements,
the shallow angle of incidence,
the attenuation of blue wavelengths,

you are the slow and nourishing
accumulation of snow,
the silhouette of a leviathan,
the spawning of the multitudes,
the roiling baitball,
food for sharks,

you are the vent’s hot outpouring,
the well-cover, hungry for offerings,
the last thoughts of a sailor
dashed upon sharp rocks,
still dreaming of mermaids,

you are positive vetting
in a negative world,
the trapdoor to an oubliette,
the anchor snagged on coral,
dragging harm behind,

you are the printer’s forgotten thumb-print,
the falling storm-split spar,
the pitch-soaked bandage,
the gyroscope frozen in space,

you are the cataract,
eutrophication,
leaf-litter,
old horizons –
you are surface tension.