Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

We’re going to see the rabbit

‘We’re going to see the rabbit’ We are going to see the rabbit. We are going to see the rabbit. Which rabbit, people say? Which rabbit, ask the children? Which rabbit? The only rabbit, The only rabbit in England, Sitting behind a barbed-wire fence Under the floodlights, neon lights, Sodium lights, Nibbling grass On the only patch of grass In…

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Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Ballad on the Taxes

We pay through the nose for subjecting of foes. Abroad we’re defeated, at home, we ‘re cheated. The ides of April are upon us and that means taxes. Just read this astoundingly relevant piece of tax outrage. It provides some consolation that “twas ever thus. A Ballad on the Taxes by Edward Ward 1. Good people: What? Will you of…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)

In Memoriam (Easter, 1915) The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood This Eastertide call into mind the men, Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should Have gathered them and will do never again.     by Edward Thomas Three British soldiers waiting in a trench. One stands leaning against the wall of the trench, another sits…

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Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. by…

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Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

What Kinds of Times are These

What Kinds of Times are These by Adrienne Rich There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled this isn’t a…

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Art, Film, Photography, Food, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Lard

A Facebook friend wanted some crowd-sourcing help for a piece she was editing. Her query asked readers to end the sentence  “When you think of lard …?” My answer was: “When I think of lard I think of Wiltshire lardy cake. Delicious. I also think of my mother – 75 years a vegetarian – who made the exception for lard…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Journey

The Journey  by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do,…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Subway Rush Hour and Modern Art

Subway Rush Hour by Langston Hughes Mingled breath and smell so close mingled black and white so near no room for fear. Hughes published Subway Rush Hour in 1951 part of “Montage of a Dream Deferred”.  In “My Early Days in Harlem” 1963 he wrote of his arrival Harlem as a young man from the mid-West.   On a bright September…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Coming

Coming by Philip Larkin On longer evenings, Light, chill and yellow, Bathes the serene Foreheads of houses. A thrush sings, Laurel-surrounded In the deep bare garden, Its fresh-peeled voice Astonishing the brickwork. It will be spring soon, It will be spring soon— And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Stalin’s Heirs

Stalin’s Heirs by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Mute was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass. Mute stood the sentries, bronzed by the breeze. Thin wisps of smoke curled over the coffin. And breath seeped through the chinks as they bore him out the mausoleum doors. Slowly the coffin floated, grazing the fixed bayonets. He also was mute- his embalmed fists, just pretending…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Timothy Winters

If you went to school in the UK anytime in the last sixty years then you will probably be familiar with this much anthologized poem. Timothy Winters by Charles Causley Timothy Winters comes to school With eyes as wide as a football pool, Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters: A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters. His belly…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

Muriel Rukeyser wrote this in 1968. Read it and tell me it doesn’t feel like she is writing for this moment in history.  How many mornings recently have you been “more or less insane” as the news pours out of “various devices”? Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) I lived in the first century of world…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palindrome

What an intriguing idea: Reversing time to see your younger self moving forward in time as you move backward. What if everything that’s happening here has a reverse reality in an anti-world? Mueller’s poem plays with this idea of opposite motions. What would you need to have on hand to meet that self midway through life? The speaker of this…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Thaw

Thaw by Edward Thomas Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed The speculating rooks at their nests cawed And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass, What we below could not see, Winter pass. Thomas wrote all his poetry in a three-year burst of creativity between 1914 and 1917. He had enlisted in 1915 and embarked for France at…

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Art, Film, Photography, Education, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School

Not a very effective way to get children to love school and enjoy math. But looks like it was an excellent method for teaching subversion, resilience and resistance to authority. Good work Miss Moran. Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School by Jane Kenyon The others bent their heads and started in. Confused, I asked my neighbor to explain—a…

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