Full Description
In this fourth volume of poetry by Anthony Hirst, the 46 poems, written in the fourteen-month period from October 2023 to November 2024, are all dated and arranged in chronological order. They include political themes - responses to the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine and to the destruction of our environment - reflections on personal experiences in the UK, France and Greece, accounts of dreams, and reflections on old age and death; a few poems are humorous or nonsensical.
Contents
Introductory Note vii
Deadication [sic] ix
Dates to remember 1
Too many voices heard in Rama 2
The Judgement of God 3
Policing the world 4
No holds barred 5
You have been warned 6
Night landings 8
Dream on . . . 9
Afterlife 10
All just nonsense 12
Prose and cons 14
Transience 15
To put it mildly (for Hamas and Netanyahu) 17
False Spring 18
A game of words — a world at stake? 20
Spring in London and elsewhere 23
in real time still counting . . . 24
Putin a nutshell or Mac(a)ron(i) all putinesca 25
Eyeless in Gaza or The New Old Testament 26
Blowing hot and cold (a central heating saga) 8
Voie sans issue? 31
Anxious concerns 33
Knock! Knock! — Who's there? 34
Nature's infinite variety (small sample) 35
Doing God's Own Work 36
Injustice in Genesis 37
Academic discourse 39
Airport and airborne 40
An old green road revisited 42
Means to an end 43
Late development 44
Some creatures great and small 45
Air-born and dead 48
Blue Planet II 49
Declaration of Intent 50
The Law updated 51
Syncopation 53
Da capo al segno 55
A sentence 57
"till death us do part'" 58
Transference 60
The Bloated Men 61
Ramblings 62
Nonversation on a crowded bus 65
Flat-earthers all 68
"The Descent of Man" 69
Index of titles and first lines 71
