Here you are: population of Greater London in 1941 : 7,987,936. Hardly a
small town me duck. You don't mean you started life in a small town but you
were evacuated to London *for* the Blitz!?
I would call that mean.
On 28 January 2015 at 07:32, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Patrick
>
> I thought you grew up in London? Now I know you make a big play of your
> age but by any standards London wasn't a small place when evwen you were
> young.
>
> Puzzled of Leicester
>
> On 27 January 2015 at 22:20, Patrick McManus <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Bill how about a companion piece showing how great things are today!!
>> we even have poetryetc-I seem to remember my early days as so
>> mean-limited-small town religious intolerance- say compared to my
>> granddaughters now
>> cheers P
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Bill Wootton
>> Sent: 27 January 2015 21:23
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Howling from the perimeters
>>
>> A companion piece to last week's 'Offshooting':
>>
>> Scarcely tilting at windmills,
>> but when my mates downed
>> Coke, I sipped Fanta or Leed.
>>
>> Banana Splits oiled
>> my gums with gloop,
>> not icy Choc Wedges.
>>
>> Such choices pepper
>> my life, the most popular
>> so eschewable.
>>
>> Neither Holden nor Ford;
>> my first car, a front-
>> wheel drive Morris 1100.
>>
>> Football? Cricket?
>> I settled for volleyball.
>> School team even.
>>
>> Until jeans got under
>> my defences. Couldn't wait
>> to get legs out of Amcos,
>>
>> into Levi's or Wranglers
>> or Lees. The big three.
>> Western gear garnered me.
>>
>> Not sure why. Perhaps
>> the unpretensiousness
>> of screen cowboys appealed.
>>
>> The way they arrived
>> at their own codes and stuck
>> by them, under starry skies.
>>
>> Today's soup of commercial TV,
>> Radio with ads, talkback,
>> how can this attract?
>>
>> At stopwork meetings,
>> never voted for the resolution.
>> Supported forlorn amendments.
>>
>> Floating with the current
>> provides false momentum.
>> I value my tributariness.
>>
>> But how much difference
>> are we talking about?
>> How wide my preferential arc?
>>
>> Am I just another trimmer
>> of tall poppies? Espousing
>> an illusion of superior taste,
>>
>> my nuanced selections
>> riding proud over roughshod
>> popular addictions?
>>
>> Trouble is the mainstream
>> tends to obliterate
>> independence of thought.
>>
>> Consent so easily
>> manufactured nowadays
>> that objectors seem stolid,
>>
>> predictable, naysayers. But
>> what passes for positive
>> so often protects privilege.
>>
>> Polls would have us believe
>> harsh asylum seeker
>> policies keep us all safe.
>>
>> Why can't we forget the taste
>> of fear? Back ourselves in?
>> The gushing middle deserve
>>
>> to be regarded with wariness.
>> Who loads those bouquets
>> at Sydney's Martin Place,
>>
>> by roadside death spots?
>> Why was remote Diana mourned
>> as a breeze-blown candle
>>
>> when Boko Haram snuffs
>> out lives by the hundred?
>> Mass outpourings of grief,
>>
>> apparent hunger for rampant
>> public mourning rituals must
>> spring from somewhere.
>>
>> Or do such displays
>> only reveal the vacuum
>> at the heart of the centre?
>>
>> bw
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/
> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
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