Poetic Movements

Letting go of my tidal battles and climate change worries for the evening, on Wednesday 13 March 2019 I joined a panel discussion on the West’s physical and political responsibility for refugees , hosted by SolidariTee National and Students for Global Health in St Andrews. The audience’s feedback was moving, and it formed the following much-deserved blog post, diving deeper into our unfinished conversation (blame in on the clock). Q 1. Do you think that a meaningful response to refugees would require both broad and deep social and economic reforms within the UK and EU (such as monetary flows between countries and urban regeneration to combat segregation and ghettoisation)? Q 2. (cont) Do you think these reforms are realistic given the neoliberal nature of the EU and UK politics? A1 & 2. The overall discussion about responsibility and response becomes much more immanent if you consider it through the lens of pre-existing policies. According to hi...

a series of poems created during  Luke Pell’s workshop at St A nza Poetry Festival 2019 ~ “Outside in here” paper glares towards me like a drop of water encapsulates light in the morning coffee texture thick & hot hands back grasping minutes lost at night minutes in & for light closing the lid like a door. Across grass the quickness of a hail journeying its unwelcome presence; ~ “Between these skins” smoother surfaces arise like a Saturday bears the promise of a Sunday and lets itself dissolve into thin air flowing unaware of its whereabouts pacing off and lifting on. There’s another place where day doesn’t turn into night as you dive. ~ “My words are movements in the world” but the world has flashed off barely noticed through its gravity barely observable. Night words lullabies singing shapes into things melting away for they can no longer be. Oh, how can I drag you off your feet ...

*this poem has been added to StAnza's Poetry Map of Scotland listing no. 320 * What are these houses about? Why are they there at all? And why when they turn on the lights they close the blinds? If you carefully peek through there are people cooking or resting TVs on confronted by empty couches toys laid on the floor coats, scarves carelessly hung somewhere. Why are the people having windows looking to the fields if they close the blinds at sleep? What’s the view of their dreams if not a valley lit in the sunshine and lit in the sunsets; a topic to write about. The mist is touching on the ground harvesting the soil growing itself to shapes of imagination and hallucination as they are seen focused-less behind steamed-up windows underneath the numbing lights. By the time sun breaks in the ghostly figures will have disappeared as they always do leaving behind hunted minds moist land and numb fe...