Song

It's strange how one can be so influenced in one's writing by what's going in - visually, through reading the work of other writers, or - as in this case - audibly. I've recently been listening to a good bit of Leonard Cohen's music - realise I enjoy it far more now than when he and I were both much younger, when he had the kind of voice I didn't care for at the time. But what interests me now is that with that rhythm in my brain, I've found myself thinking in a lyric metre - and that the journey there was far more seductive than the suggestion made over the years by one critic of my work that I should discipline my writing in this way.

Not that this is disciplined - and not that I took much time over it. It's a song looking for a tune, and it's a song for now, for me now and in this time, when I know that all over Britain people of my generation are going to vote to leave Europe and I feel ashamed, when politics are vile, when my friends seem self-selecting and everyone else is lost.

 I also feel furious - but all that happens is a song without a melody.

But for what it's worth ...

SONG

When I think about today
and what I am and where
and the world keeps crashing in
with anger - do I care?

Well yes, I find I’m thinking,
though nothing seems to move
in the world that I inhabit
in the people that I love -

but the violence and sorrow
and the voices screaming hate
cut across my passive questions
take me out beyond my gate

to the people sunk in apathy
to the old and the unwise,
drive me far beyond the safety zone
to where the world cries.

And though I’m growing older
and common sense says fear
in my heart I’m still protesting
in my head it still seems clear

that we cannot stand and wonder
while the world dissolves in flame -
we must fight to save the future
not live content with shame.

C.M.M. 06/16

Very naughty indeed

When I was very small, I used to lie awake in the light summer evenings and dread the arrival overhead of the 8pm flight from Paris into Renfrew airport. As it roared above our top flat, I imagined the horror of a bomb falling from it onto my little bedroom (originally the maid's room in the early days of the building) and visualise the heavy sandstone block between the windows tilting and toppling into the back green. The war was a recent memory and stories of the bombing were still sufficiently commonplace for small children with big ears to pick up enough detail to terrify.

Now, living in the peace of Argyll, I visualise bits of London I know - like Croydon - ravaged by fire and anger. I think of the daytime activity of clearing up, in defiance of the possibility that night will bring more destruction. Last night I read the tweeted commentary of people in London and elsewhere, and realised from the responses of some of my contacts that there was a great tide of immoderate comment that was passing me by. Suggestions about dealing with the riots ranged from the sensible to the homicidal; reactions to these from the shocked to the angry.

And what business have I to comment? Here we have cool, fresh evenings in beautiful surroundings, and I live a comfortable, cushioned life in which the noise from the pubs coming out irritates rather than threatens. As someone who has taken part in demos and sung at police lines and learned how to remain safe during NVDA* I know how it is possible to demonise the forces of the law - but there's where the comparison ends. Last night I watched a report on YouTube by an incredibly brave guy in Clapham who was asking looters if they were proud of what they were doing as they looted the shops of electrical appliances (they left the bookshop alone, natch). "What's that about?" he asked. And on Twitter people demanded draconian clamp-downs that others said would make things worse; some offered to pray for London and others felt patronised by the offer;  some seemed intent on appearing cool whatever happened.

Do I have a take on it? I don't know. I suspect that if I were living in the middle of it all I would be forgetting all my liberal instincts as fear took over - fear for my safety, for my property, for my livelihood. As it is, I worry about family and friends and am glad to hear they're ok. I look at angry youths being bestial and defensive women nicking tellies and I'm not surprised to see police wielding batons with a will. Fear and rage are powerful emotions and once things get going reason goes out of the window. So no, I don't know what I think, other than that it's hellish and I'm sorry for anyone who has to live with it. I'll stick right now with the wisdom of a two year old boy who saw the TV news this morning: "People are being very naughty."

Quite the most balanced response I've heard so far.

*NVDA: non-violent direct action