Re: The Office by ellisonandrew	9-Nov-02/1:10 PM
Funny and so so true!The first stanza is the strongest. You should print this poem out and hang it on your office wall then see the faces crack!
Re: Should I Go? by RobinGayle	9-Nov-02/3:33 PM
yes...you should go!He/she obviously isn't sure of what they want enough for you to trust them with your emotions. Perhaps if you show independance he/she will be more attracted to you-What am i doing? This aint no problem page!!!! Errrrr...Nice poem, good flow.
Re: Clown of Misery II by nocturnalism	28-Feb-03/2:37 AM
Needs a bit of work on the rythm just to make it flow a bit better. would sound pretty googd as a song-sort of range against the machine stylee typa thing!
regarding some deleted poem...	26-Mar-03/10:00 AM
I read this through a few times and still could not really figure out what it is about!....Now I expect this is just me being incredibly stupid but please enlighten me so that i may read it through again with a new found wisdom! I enjoyed your usage of language though so for that you can have a 7!
regarding some deleted poem...	31-Mar-03/9:30 AM
1. Bush and Blair appear to be victims of their own propaganda: no `rising' v. Saddam and flowers for the liberators, but anti-US anger and resistance to a colonial invasion. Why? a) Bombing of civilians. The killing of 50-plus civilians in Basra (little reported) - a city that was not, but has now become a `military target' - was an `accident'. The market bomb in Baghdad was another, so was the bombing of the bus in Syria, the bomb that fell in Iran, etc. So we are told. Hundreds of civilians have died and thousands injured. Bush and Blair knew that innocent people would be killed. Bombing and shelling densely populated areas kills a lot of ordinary people. This has not made their relatives, friends, fellow workers and neighbours support the killers. And we should not forget the long-term effects of the Gulf War. Children in Basra are still being born with severe deformities as a result of depleted uranium. b) Sanctions. Blair says the suffering is caused by Saddam, but the UN and others point to the effect of sanctions over twelve years. The US and UK wanted to keep sanctions in place (France called for ending them) and blocked imports that have led to poverty, hunger and death among the population, especially the most vulnerable, e.g. children. c) Patriotism/nationalism. People are defending their country, their nationalised industries, their small businesses, their sovereignty and independence, their towns, cities, communities, families. There is still a strong sense of national identity, which was fostered by the Ba'ath Party over five decades. Despite religious and other differences, ordinary working people feel and suffer together. Their collective solidarity is strengthened when their whole existence is threatened. The Vietnam-war phrase, `hearts and minds', has been revived like a bad joke. What the imperialists want is to break down the Iraqis' national identity and collective solidarity by encouraging religious, `tribal' (?), ethnic, regional, political, and other divisions - as their policies largely succeeded in doing in the Congo, Somalia, Liberia, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. Ba'athism, though brutal and tyrannical, encouraged a secular nationalism. Even those who hate Saddam are against the US/UK invasion. They know what it will bring - not `freedom' or `democracy' but a fragmented wasteland whose resources have been expropriated by a foreign invader. More poverty and inequality will result under a US military junta that will oversee the sucking out of Iraq's oil wealth, that will privatise everything including essential services like water, and will further reduce the Iraqi people to a humiliating dependence on foreign aid. (Zambia was a one-party state. When Kaunda, one of the Saddam's closest friends, was voted out, the new government proceeded to implement neo-liberal policies. In Iraq, these policies can only be implemented through military force.) d) The humanitarian crisis. The invaders of Iraq caused the humanitarian crisis in the first place and now pretend they are being humanitarians. Does this not explain why even the recipients of these food parcels and boxes of water tell the invaders to leave? However, if and when, through constant bombardment, the weakening of armed resistance, and the physical liquidation of Ba'athist political structures (i.e. `regime change', which flies in the face of international law) - if all this eventually reduces a critical mass of the people to destitution, yes, then maybe some of them, simply in order to survive, will get down on their knees and crave for help. Breaking the people's spirit will vindicate Blair's fervent Christian morality. (In Africa the number of conversions to Christianity always shot up after the colonising forces inflicted a military defeat on the indigenous people.) 2. Why did Blair fly to see Bush? To discuss the `post-Saddam reconstruction'? That was the cover story. But was it not for crisis talks? They had expected Basra to fall in a day and the south to rise up so the armoured columns could race up to Baghdad, and the whole show would be over in a couple of weeks. It took five days even to open the port of Umm Kasr and even now there are so-called `pockets of resistance' there. The US forces are so over- stretched that a further 120,000 troops are to be sent in. Who could have predicted this? Hence the Bush/Blair crisis talks. 3. Splits in the regime. Richard Perle, chair of Bush's Defence Policy Board and the `brain' behind the attack on Iraq who had been confidently predicting a pro-US rising and a short war, has resigned. (The reason given, that of a conflict of interests, is spurious.) Differences over military strategy have been exposed. What Bush and Blair said ten days ago is being contradicted today. 4. Why don't they just flatten Baghdad and `finish the job'? This `nuke 'em' line is pushed by members of the Bush gang and those Neanderthals in Britain who read The Sun. The trouble with this course of action, which would mean killing millions of innocent people, is that the Middle East would erupt - regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are looking a bit shaky, and there's always Pakistan. Following the `Nukemites' (one Pentagon spokesman for the `Shock and Awe' operation said "what we want to create is bombardment with a nuclear impact") could be suicidal in view of the anti-war movement generally. Revolted by the lies about weapons of mass destruction, the illegality of the policy of `regime change', the racism, the civilian deaths, popular protest has never been higher - thousands of British shcoolchildren on strike, blocking roads, etc. is unprecedented. This is holding back the imperialists. 4. The alternatives. One alternative for the military strategists is `street fighting', hand-to-hand combat in the cities. But this means high US and British casualties. Another would be the Israeli method - just go in with the tanks and shell people's houses. Yet another, suggested in a recent statement by Colin Powell to the effect that the battle of Baghdad could wait, is to dig in for a long, drawn-out war, a war of attrition. The trouble with this is that the cost goes up: already Gordon Brown has had to allocate another £1.25 billion on top of the £1.75 already allocated. Bush has asked for $75 billion. Will the hard-pressed US and UK taxpayers stand for this? The US has indicated that it will use Iraqi oil to pay for their war (so much for their stated intention to ensure that the profits from the oil go to the Iraqi people). 5. Conclusion? The imperialists are facing a reversal of fortunes few could have predicted. The divisions in the UN and Europe weaken Blair, as do the divisions in the Labour Party. Can Blair last? He was counting on a quick, "clean" victory that would enable him to rebut his critics. A long, messy war with significant American and British casualties plus continued anti-war protests throughout the world, above all in the Middle East, makes a big dent in the unilateralist Bush-Blair agenda. The Iraqi people have every right under international law to fight this unprovoked aggression by invading forces that have overwhelming military superiority. Iraqis have no airforce and no navy. No sooner were their Samoud missiles destroyed under the UN inspection regime than they were bombed and invaded. We should support the Iraqis' resistance to colonial occupation. Anyone who says we should support "our" troops, like Charles Kennedy, is supporting an illegal war, a barbaric aggression carried out by the most powerful superpower the world has ever seen, an act carried out in defiance of the UN and world opinion. Charles Kennedy supports a war he had opposed before it started, before it became a reality. Now it's real he supports it! - as if you can support the troops doing the actual killing but oppose the idea of them doing it - logically and morally an untenable position. We should defend the right of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi armed forces to defend their country. We should also say: BRING THE TROOPS BACK! Bush and Blair have no right under any known law to set themselves up as global policeman, as moral supermen like heroes from a Hollywood Western or a teenage comic, ridding the world of evil men. Those of us who have made a reality check will confirm that we are not living inside a Superman comic. 6. Action. Demonstrate, protest, discuss, argue, write letters, send emails, etc. Next meeting: Wed April 2 at 1 p.m. (Blair's phone number is 020 7270 1234 email is public@ministers.mod.uk) !
Re: Water Runs Deep by shwenatjadeflower	22-May-03/10:47 AM
Ok, it's a little to cliqued in parts but i like the part about the ping pong ball guided by the paddle and hand.I know what you mean by the sentiment of the poem. A world where everyones waters ran deep would indeed be a truly marvellous place. But at least there are some and not none at all!
Re: Warmth by shwenatjadeflower	22-May-03/10:54 AM
Really beautiful-nice one 8
Re: Alone by aurora	22-May-03/11:04 AM
Really insightful. I too have felt like that and it ani't pretty!
regarding some deleted poem...	22-May-03/11:11 AM
I like your style-for a pretty cheery person i sure do write some depressing shite!
regarding some deleted poem...	22-May-03/11:15 AM
Yep, another good un
regarding some deleted poem...	22-May-03/11:18 AM
I want to read more of your work but the computer screen is fuckin with me heeeeeed and making it want to implode-and plus i have to go nout and get pissed but i will try and have another look tomorrow-you've brightened up my revision session-cheers mate!
regarding some deleted poem...	10-Jun-03/4:49 PM
Quite funny, not quite as good as some of your other stuff tho but still better than a lot of other stuff on here. Think it a bit garsh what God's wife said, there is some interesting and pretty rank imagery here (fish bones in throat....mmmm) shan't be trying it tho as i'm a veggie. (If i had a dog would i have t feed it greens...not real sure bout that one-thing it would piss outta it's arse) Check out me poem called mirror to mirror. GW had a bit t say bout that too!
Re: MotherF*ckers Who Fuck Above/Two Story Apartment by JoyLuck	2-Jul-03/3:29 PM
This is amazing, never thought i could laugh so much at some words in the shape of a house. Genius, fuck the people who say it isn't funny-it's humour is in the fact it is a poem/picture. 10
Re: Line Fuck by JoyLuck	2-Jul-03/3:54 PM
hmmm...interesting! lol
regarding some deleted poem...	19-Nov-03/8:54 AM
Wonderful! I especially like the way you've spaced the lines "fold it neatly and let it rest/ on my work desk" This works really well and gives a sense of pause which is relevant to the poem. Well done-10, am now off to read some more of yours!
regarding some deleted poem...	19-Nov-03/8:59 AM
I like the way that there is no punctuation-gives sense of the futile nature of the slave's life. 9
regarding some deleted poem...	25-Apr-04/5:01 PM
A very sad story. I think skid row mentality stays with you wherever you're living:9
Re: Izzy's Last Night by jessicazee	27-May-05/3:30 AM
Moving and interesting. Could do with more clues to the relationship, history between these two. First two lines a little slow for the pace of the rest of the poem.
Re: Try Thinking Too by Bankrupt_Word_Clerk	21-Jan-06/6:55 PM
Splendid...
Re: Shy, quiet by Ranger	12-May-06/5:17 AM
Here it is...the long awaited comment. Sorry I've been a bit lazy recently! I read this through a couple of time and really enjoyed it. At first I wasn't sure what you were getting at and then I thought about the title and the idea of 'cagie''lightening' and allowed the pace to sweep me along and a picture emerged. Clever and makes you feel slightly dizzy to read which captures the feeling of an encompassing shyness and paranoia.