a bit of quietness

it's liable to be a bit quiet around here for the next wee while for reasons which are mundane and annoying. i'll keep at the poetry thing - to stop that wpould be just unhealthy! but to those whose sites i habitually frequent, i do apologise for the current period of quietness. hopefully normal service will be resumed ina couple fo months....

john haines

The Last Election

Suppose there are no returns,
and the candidates, one
by one, drop off in the polls,
as the voters turn away,
each to his inner persuasion.

The frontrunners, the dark horses,
begin to look elsewhere,
and even the President admits
he has nothing new to say;
it is best to be silent now.

No more conventions, no donors,
no more hats in the ring;
no ghost-written speeches,
no promises we always knew
were never meant to be kept.

And something like the truth,
or what we knew by that name -
that for which no corporate
sponsor was ever offered -
takes hold in the public mind.

Each subdued and thoughtful
citizen closes his door, turns
off the news. He opens a book,
speaks quietly to his children,
begins to live once more.

nazim hikmet

A Sad State of Freedom

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others-
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
a finger on your temple
free to have a free conscience.

Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
your saunter about in your great freedom:
you're free
with the freedom of being unemployed.

You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom-
you have the freedom to become an air-base.

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being-
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged.

There's neither an iron, wooden
nor a tulle curtain
in your life; there's no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
is a sad affair under the stars.

translated by taner baybars

still awake!

and jacqui smith loses her seat. hurrah!

even if it's to the tories.now to wait for hazel blears. fingers crossed!

and more election....

tories get their mp back in scotland!

tories up about eighteen on labour.

bbc analzingthe results in 'molecular detail'. no, no you're not. what they're doing is talkign about numbers and more numbers. a whole night now and in none of the coverage have i heard anything about policy or the effects on policy. it's depressingly about personality, all they're lacking is some sort of simon cowell figure, or maybe that's just paxman.

and a lovely line on the bbc about the voting irregularities and peoples' inability to vote. like the 'third world' they keep telling us which sounds just that little bit patronising coming as it does from a bunch of middle class, middle aged white men.

if i was still drinking i'd be having a drinking game. identify the person's party by appearance. the chance for drunken-ness with the labour and the tories. but ukip, the bnp and the greens must come from some sort of clone factory. except the bnp haven;t been involved in a street fight since this morning. as far as i know.

time for bed...

more election

paxman. ask the same question again and again. and again. powersharing. liam fox squirms like a weasel. david milliband, who appears to be growing a moustache with each take, manages a much better performance. everyone tells the media types to wait and see what the vote says. media cannae take it!

labour and tories still neck and neck. cameron elected, brown elected. no portillo moments. except maybe lembit opik. so who cares?

but wait who's this on bbc scotland. ian gray, actually speaking on tv? surely not!

it's an election

so again, despite promising i wouldn't i'm stuck again watching the election results coming in.

coverage so far - depressing. channel four appears to think having comedians on constitutes some sort of comment. comedians and lauren laverne, who appears to be trying to carve out a channel four presence for herself in the wake of bbcr6's demise. as interesting as watching butter melt.

sky, which i'm about as wont to watch as one of rupert murdoch's stool samples is staggeringly dull. they appear to be confused with actual news. perhaps they should set kay burley on fire. i would gladly pay mr murdoch for that.

the bbc. to be honest it's like watching an episode of loose women the comment is so inane with andrew neil being a particular lowlight. so low he could possibly get himself a job on live from studio five. jeremy vine, a man with no dignity, has a 'swingometer' getting filmed on an unsteady cam so unsteady it's giving me vertigo.

the tories remain non existent so far in scotland with the snp getting a bit of a caning leading to the inevitable whining about lack of media coverage. how is this even possible. ian gray is so unrecognisable that's like getting beat by the invisible man. or at least jim murphy, a man who i believe is in roget's as a synonym for insincere.

england's still looking difficult to tell. the lib dems are doing their usual thing, coming third, and looking burst. tories still not ahead with some 140 declared. whoever wins the greek debt crisis and that whole situation, which seemed so difficult for all the parties to actually talk about prior to the vote, will be the 'gift' the winner gets in the morning. now there's a cheery thought...