Critic Cal

I have decided to be a poet. My father said that there isn't a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided. He tried to interest me in becoming a computer operator, but I said 'I need to put my soul into my work and it is well known that computers haven't got a soul.' My father said, 'The Americans are working on it.' But I can't wait that long. (Sue Townsend, The Sacred Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 , p102) Well said, Adrian! Stand your ground! If only I'd stuck to my poetic guns at your age ... just think of the volumes of villanelles, the stacks of sestinas, the plenitude of pantoums ... not to mention the veritable  library  of limericks I could've penned by now. Instead, here I am, operating computers day in, day out, with barely a weekday evening free to scrape together a few lines of light verse here and there. I've got some serious catching up to do ... Got gaps in my readin

“Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity — most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has bec

                THE RIME OF THE APPLE CUSTOMER                 It is an Apple Customer                 And he stoppeth one of three.                 'By thy hipster beard and thick-framed eye                 Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?                 The Genius Bar has opened just                 And I've a job to do;                 The pre-booked patrons congregate:                 May'st see the length'ning queue.'                 He holds him with his skinny hand,                 'But my iPhone...' quoth he.                 'Hold off! unhand me, on-trend loon!'                 Eftsoons his hand dropt he.                 He holds him with his thick-framed eye --                 The Genius stood still,                 And listens like a three years' child:                 The Customer hath his will.                 The Genius sat on a stool:                 He cannot choose but hear;                 And thu