Wednesday

I caught some of BBC1's Imagine last night which was looking at federal schemes to fund artistic endeavours in the US during the depression of the 1930s. The programme mentioned visual artists, composers, musicians, playwrights, actors, prose and song writers, all paid from the governmental purse. It didn't mention poets. And yet there was a time when a fool-poet was an essential part of the entourage of those charged with the governance of this country at least.

Here is another offering from a contemporary fool-poet. I'm rather partial to it, but it's had mixed reviews.


No Angels
There's nothing celestial here
amongst the flesh and bone,
the fractured and the fragile.

There's no angels here, she says,
in amongst the clatter of the trolley,
the bang of the bin,
the blare of the alarm.

There's no angels here,
I know,
only a quiet word,
a grasped at touch,
a hurt heard and understood.