The title of my sonnet is inspired by that of the excellent 1995 film, Land and Freedom, directed by eminent film director, Ken Loach, persecuted in the UK and elsewhere for his compassionate socialist views.

With reference to my last six lines: the terrorist murder in 1946 of British soldiers, of Jews and others should not be forgotten in the rush to attempt to justify the seven-decades-long ...

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It’s time to say NO!

It’s time to turn left,

To staunch the blood flow,

Of truth they’re bereft,

It’s time for the many,

To stand up to the few,

To liars ten-a-penny,

To red ties turned blue,

You’re a friend of apartheid

You’ve just lied to this nation,

You enabler of genocide,

And illegal occupation,

The targets weren’t civilian,

Your pants ar...

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النكبةAl Nakba: Day 27,375 and Counting…

With client hacks,

quiet words in ears,

he loves the craic

at working lunch

with the journo sewer,

making numbers crunch,

his purging list,

is at the ready,

on power pissed

he’s biding time,

and keeping steady

the applecart,

election ready,

to be off like a fart,

the lobby’s man,

so quiet when

it suits him ...

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Your Jewish Voice for Labour

is another voice for me,

a voice for cooperation,

a voice for good, not ill;

your Jewish Voice for Peace,

asks no more blood be spilled,

let your protests’ sound increase;

speak up my sisters, brothers,

for all humanity,

speak out against vile smears,

against hypocrisy,

speak out against apartheid,

Mandela was correct:

our freedom...

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Just to make myself perfectly clear from:

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/

"To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed, never with the oppressors.”

Marek Edelman – last surviving leader, Warsaw ghetto uprising.

By way of contrast, this from Ntanyahu: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them”. Israel...

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Bread and Roses for All

One swallow will not our glorious summer make,

Nor red-tied frauds, true friends of labouring folk:

No friend of mine can love Apartheid’s yolk,

More swallowed lies, our nation’s heart will break:

Britannia’s future guard, for our Children’s sake,

Compassion’s spirit we must now invoke,

Let zeal for justice fill our Hearts of Oak,

Lest fate make any ...

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My original intention had been to write a humorous poem around the proverbial swallow, and words such as pint, summer and lies etc.

But with the UK now being in a world of deepest doggy-do, and with a Starmerite (his dad was a tool-maker don’t you know!) purge of genuine Socialists under way, I thought I’d try to write a sonnet whose tone reflects the dire straits in which British cit...

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No warning did I ever get,

That I really should have been born white,

Before the shooting and the bombing,

That ruined our economy.

How silly of me to not be white,

What’s more, I’m not indigenous;

My adoptive dad’s lived there for years,

He’s white (but not indigenous),

And a fluent speaker of the Queen’s English,

So I guess he ticks all the right boxes.

I’d love to...

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I expect everybody’s read enough Nelson Mandela poems by now,  but here’s mine anyway...

“What’s it got to do with us?”  refrained
my father when his boys
spurned the bottle of Cape Red plonk
he’d serve with Sunday roast.  Despite how it stained,
he’d never grasp our umbrage at his choice,
but Nelson’s cell was like a sunken rock
to which our teenage optimism was chained.

There se...

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The Pervasive Poison of Apartheid (working title)

In the Rainbow Nation one colonial legacy,

Which we see persisting today unfortunately

Is an attitude from a more northerly latitude of 'I'm alright Jack!'

If neighbours from Mozambique or Zim

Should decide on migration in to find what they are seekin’,

Locals will say “they’re arrivin’ here ridin’, on a croco...

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