Month: April 2019

my vulnerability is out there it is tired

it flags 

it is my love and my purpose 
it is precious 

it is my beautiful child my innerness

my vulnerability sticks out when i am angered 

it is my achilles

 
it is nurtured it attracts it repels 

it is my engine no it is my flow

 
it is when fall in love in love 
fall 

in love

 
it is at my career my 
releasing of secret feelings

it is like my toy is it out there somehow 

white tiger going down hill 

it is circling the tree 

why is it not remembering 

We came to sing

We came to Blokefest to sing, we came to sing, and to regress some, together, towards a more elemental state. We came to discover deep resonances, to seek echo chambers in parts of our selves beyond our chests and throats, to feel vibrations inside cavities and chambers that we barely knew existed. We came to discover those resonances, not alone but among fellow men reaching for the same, not in ones and twos, but in our tens, in our hundreds. Rare indeed is it to feel a part of such a magnificent manly amplifier.

We came to sing the old songs, the familiar and the comfortable, where we look each other in the eye with soft recognition as the notes fall into place just where they should, where we hardly need conducting.And we came to be led in the learning of new songs, to marvel, sometimes to be overwhelmed by the sheer musical inventiveness, by the virtuosity that is out there in our world, waiting to be found.

As we slowly put together the pieces of those songs, we marvelled a little at those moments when rough-hewn voices are thrown together in pursuit of the inner depth of the song, in search of the place where the composer lived when the soul of the piece was birthed. We worked slowly at first to learn new harmonies, of songs from far away, to know alien notes, guttural lyrics; then move beyond that stuttering familiarity to somehow make these new songs, in time, our own.

At Blokefest the tradition among our leaders is to blend our voices, to have 150 voices indivisible one from another. But at this Blokefest we learned – from a song leader new to us, a seafarer from another tradition – that it is okay not to blend but to to be dissonant. He encouraged us to express our own pain, to feel our sense of the song and where it moves us, foregrounding our private lament amid the chorus of our mates.

Many of these songs take us backwards in time, often to a place in history when the need to sing was begat by privation and misery. As we sing we sometimes sentimentally indulge the thought that we know what these men went through, that in the singing of their songs we empathise with their heroism, feel how it must be to feel utterly exhausted, defeated. While we steer clear of making the past too folksy, too much dressed in smocks with tankards hanging freely, we also know that at a primary level it is unlikely that we will ever know that life and its lack of choice, its complete absence of entertainment or self- expression beyond that which utters from mens throats.

We want to know of that world that is lost, the world of our ancestors – and we are glad it is lost – while knowing that with its departure that part of our tradition of manhood went too, the loss of the dignity of manual work – or even of soldiering – and of the bond of indelible camaraderie that comes with that closeness in adversity.As much as we came to travel the roads our grandfathers trod, we also came to journey backwards in our own lives, to regress to a place left behind at boyhood, a place of play and of innocence before competition began to rule.

We declare that within our group, in our singing culture, we put competition to one side. While this is largely true, competition is too deeply ingrained for it ever to truly go away and of course comparisons are made – that is a very human thing. But we do work to help each other, especially those who have been before and know that it is no disgrace to seek help, as much as to offer it. We listen in, we listen up, notice how our voice swells with the others’ rising, notice where it is off, feel how it is to struggle to catch up with a lost groove, wonder why it is so easy for the others while we struggle. We beat ourselves up and press on when wisdom says stop, tune back in, it is there inside you, let it out. And we marvel at the galvanising effect that performance has upon our capacity for us all to hit the perfect note together. We came to sing, and that is the main thing.

The Dark Side of the Cult of the Bloke. 

I think most of you are familiar by now with my website ‘Families Against Cult Teachings,’ and of my tireless work in pursuit of cults that seek to rupture family life.  I mentioned in my blog last month that I was leafleted by a particularly pernicious group calling themselves ‘Bloke’ while I  was working under cover outside  the Scientology Centre on Tottenham Court Road last month. It was clear from the leaflet that this cult’s sole target and exclusive focus is on the entrapment of the father / son / brother alone, with the purpose of luring them away from family life or even against the prevailing political correctness of the workplace, to turn them inward towards worship of “The Bloke.’

Now this ‘Bloke’ – clearly a deity of some sort – is never directly addressed or revealed, but simply alluded to through the constant singing and chanting of repetitive mantras, rather in the style of Hare Krishna but more raucous. Perversely, followers are led to believe that this Bloke resides within them as an ‘inner bloke’; as an internal voice that directs and guides in all matters, to the exclusion of any other value system or doctrine that may have been installed or naturally evolved through their conditioned life experience. 

 I have never before in all my long experience of cult watching encountered such a totalising assault on family life, where patriarchal power is promoted to the point of exclusion of the distaff side. So influential is this cult that they are infiltrating the power system at all levels, even to the extent of seeming to have their own show on national Radio Three. ‘Talk with another man and he is your friend. Sing with another man and he is your brother’ is the mantra this cult live by.

Their global reach through mainstream radio far eclipses the minority god- bothering evangelical radio shows that you encounter in the USA. This is simply the most sophisticated cult I have ever come across.    This weekend past I bravely managed to infiltrate the annual gathering of the Bloke in a field in deepest, most inaccessible Wiltshire, putting all of the personal danger to one side in order to get the information out to you, my dear community of readers and armchair vigilantes. In the joining directives from the Inner Circle of the Bloke I was told only to bring lots of money and a folding chair.

Now it is not at all unusual for cults to demand money up front and set up stipends but this folding chair injunction baffled me completely.  I now understand that it was all part of the early destabilising process. If you ever get tangled up with this Inner Circle then beware – these people are really smart, and will stop at nothing to bend you to their will.  

This year at their annual indoctrination they were celebrating five years of Blokehood, where the original cult founders were honoured and revered. Stories were told, myths were recounted of the barren world Before Bloke, (BB) when men were forced to sing in Barber Shop quartets, Welsh Male Voice ensembles or even worse mixed choirs. BB was the worst of times, when men even had to spend weekends in shopping malls and garden centres, trailing after their spouses.

By contrast, we were directed to bask in the glory of After Bloke, and to rejoice in the sunny uplands of male liberation that accompany this fresh Bloke- infused consciousness. While the Festival of the Bloke was only five years old, implicit, shady claims were made by the leaders suggesting that the genesis of Bloke goes way back, way back in history, to the earliest of days when men learned to sing while sailing and fishing together, always without women, who were left to take care of family and the land.

The triumph of the Inner Circle was its genius in capturing and then codifying the core of blokeness, then committing that essence to a litany of song.  Towards the conclusion of Blokefest, this Inner Circle awarded themselves golden garments arrayed in Bloke hieroglyphics that distinguish them from we mere acolytes clad in papal purple, though adorned with the same hieroglyphics. What was so unusual about this cult was that it made no claims to have the one single leader who brought the word down from on high, though I suspected that no cult could survive long without such a guru, moving among them.

Had the Fellowship of the Bloke rediscovered the Holy Ghost; or was Bloke Incarnate moving among us after all, secretly surveying our every manly move, for signs of apostasy?  And were the Inner Circle mere apostles, offering beery loaves and fishes, mouthpieces for this higher power? On arrival our vehicles were taken away and impounded in far away field.  A shadowy black Land Rover Defender patrolled the perimeter constantly, ever alert for escapees.

In a dismal tent we had to queue for hours to be registered, where our details were painstakingly recorded and entered on a spreadsheet. (I tried to lie about my age and median income, to test the system, but they caught me out.) We had our clothing removed, to be replaced by a heavily branded purple tee shirt that had to be worn at all times.  We were warned really early on that – despite this being a weekend packed with exciting sporting events – that no contact was allowed with the outside world, especially the sporting world.

This warning was repeated throughout the weekend and sue enough anyone found trying to sneak in scores was swiftly silenced. Equally we were not allowed to discuss the forthcoming European referendum, lest it distract from our fullest Blokish immersion in a different, more oppressive politics entirely.  No contact was allowed at all with the work-women that were among us as food slaves. These slaves were led by the draconian Susie the merciless, alleged agent of the much feared Gilly of Ashton Keynes.

On site, Susie was guarded at all times by Big Mike, one of the Inner Circle, whose ostensible role was to fry bacon over a primitive fire while watching for any man exhibiting outbreaks of libido. I was later to discover that this particular bacon is a well known sexual suppressant, the bromide of the porcine world.   We were given Bloke inscribed pint glasses, out of which we were ordered to drink only beer at metronomic intervals, all the better to keep us in a permanent miasma.

The production of food was spasmodic, cloying, and we were permitted no choice of diet.  Once we were registered, some of us were assigned to particular tribal compounds within the wider camp, while others were sent consigned to arbitrary pitches, left to fend for themselves. Each of the tribes had their own leader drawn for the Inner Circle, with each displaying a distinctly different social culture and pecking order that in many ways reflected their leaders’ personalities (and perhaps psychoses.)  

Those assigned to tribes were let to know just how fortunate they were to have such security and manly comfort around them, while those sent to random pitches felt the full force of social isolation. Some even had an additional netting tent placed over their own smaller tent to amplify the sense of separation from the tribes. By contrast – and without explanation – a few privileged others were allowed to enter the site in huge camper vans, I suspect to stoke the phenomenon of ‘accommodation envy’, and generally destabilise the social compact.

 We rarely saw the inhabitants of these vans. I imagine they were some sort of corporate sponsors, there to witness rather than participate, while they feasted on prawn sandwiches and Prosecco, warm inside their motorised cocoon. Among the tribes, the militant AK47 were clearly the most powerful. They certainly made the most noise. Eschewing any need for a protective gazebo, they huddled by night around an open fire, drinking brandy while generally blocking the passage of others along the rutted road; especially hindering the free movement of the Manchoir from Oxford, who had to tiptoe around the fierce AKs to find the sanctuary of their own sanitised camp, which hugged tight to the furthest away hedge.  

This august Oxford group endured daily readings from the Guardian each morning, while big Steve conducted regular seminars on the benefits of renewable energy for anyone polite enough to listen. Those that cycled to the event basked in smug self-satisfaction. Steve by contrast arrived in a huge transporter van, though it may well have been full of windmills.  Strangely it was among this group that the outbreak of the ‘chair wars’ was at its most intense.   

The requirement for varying quality and comfort levels of folding chairs was clearly designed to destabilise groups through invidious contrast, but this group took it to the furthest degree. No sooner would someone stand up to escape the renewables seminar than another would occupy their chair. Tension flared, and soon chairs were being broken and even thrown, with alcohol free beer bottles flying though the air with parabolic intent.

This scholarly frenzy far eclipsed any of the fights between the English and Russian football fans that occurred that weekend, but then we were never allowed to know of outside sports, so they knew not of the aspect of the national psyche that they were channeling. So thin, then is the veneer of cilvilisation. The Liverpool Beddington Bittermen never strayed too far from their table, groaning with hard liquor as it was, though occasionally they would break into song, inexplicably accompanied by bellows from a large yellow trombone. 

The Ikley lot were quiet, confused by having no Lancastrian group to play off against, while the London Chaps Choir merely dreamt of their next cappuccino served on a cushioned sofa by a man with a beard. On the mark of the hour, ever hour, we were summoned to work by an unignorable blast on a Vuvuzela, piercing any attempt at seditious chatter that might have stirred during our limited down time.

The work was hard, and the hours were long, and the treatment surely took some bearing. Our workplace was a desolate place, a cavernous, draughty tent where we were required to simulate the hauling of halliards and the pressing of capstans for hours on end, all the while singing our Bloke songs until every note, every phrase was deeply engrained in our souls. When our singing flagged, fresh song-masters were brought in from the outside to ensure that we continued to ‘Sing like a Bloke,’ while our leaders broke away to their own elite little top to plot further indoctrination.  

Perhaps the scariest substitution from the bench of all was the late night introduction of the Roaring Trowmen on Saturday, just when our voices and most of our money and senses were spent. They hoisted the shanty spinnaker and drove us on, relentlessly, towards dawn. The mood though, strange to relate, was not one of endless deprivation, but instead one of brotherhood. The Inner Circle were really clever in mixing up their humiliating privations with regular ‘love bombing,’ so favoured by cults the world over. In the spirit of the love bomb, they told us that we were the ‘chosen ones.’

They celebrated our smartness in leaving all of our mundane existences behind us to come join them, reminding us continually that no  group of men had ever been so happy as we were together. The songs themselves once learned were indelibly etched in memory, some utterly sad, others uplifting, most simply beautiful. You could not help but fall in love with those songs, and in parallel grow unwavering attachment to the leaders that taught them. Perhaps at some other level we had fallen in love with the ineluctable power that lay behind the music, and its ability to take we men to a different place beyond which there is no return to normalcy.  

I was mesmerized, quite entranced, despite being armed with knowledge of the mechanics of cult entrapment that should inoculate me against such transports. By night we were forced – yes, you guessed it – to sing, yet again, and to carouse.  At this point some underlying agendas began to reveal themselves, to those of us attentive to the subtexts. One of the Liverpudlians harangued us on the impossibility of men ever understanding women, reminding us as to how we needed to be vigilant to every woman’s apparently innocuous utterance.

One of the Manchoir, a quiet-seeming chap, warned us in song of the dangers of seduction by a ‘beautiful stranger,’ summoned by a old crone fortune-teller.  The AK’s lustily glorified the tale of a man ‘who took the knife in his hand, and she laughed no more.’  In all of our songs of the sea, women were objectified, referred to only by the universal appellation of ‘Nancy.’  We were reminded that if a woman wished to take to sea, for purpose of servicing an officer, then she would need to disguise as a man. The signage for the womens’ toilets in the washhouse were torn down, to be gleefully replaced by badly drawn “Blokes’ insignia.

The baby changing shelves were appropriated for purposes too degraded to describe in this family- orientated blog. Surely all of this put together is suggestive of the ‘dispensing of existence’ so tellingly theorised by Lifton in his analysis of cult life? All around this unfolding tableau, a wizard of a man with a bowler hat adorned with pheasant feathers, atop wisps of fragile blond hair, danced among us, always insinuating himself into the centre of things, no matter what time of day or night. He was ever leading us on, in pied piper fashion, pulling us together in song, despite our fatigue and our protests for him to stop.

Was this willow-the-wisp the Shamen, I wondered? Was he the wild man, the Casteneda, the Gollum, the jester in our midst, the one who lives on the edge of the village, on the margins, to beguile us, to entrance us; then suddenly to magically reveal our future to us?  As I listened to his plaintive falsetto, I even speculated that he might be the Bloke himself, in most incongruous disguise.  Could he be the ‘strange attractor’ that binds the whole group together, who provides coherence, in quantum physics terms? Either way, this man out-of-time must be at some level at the heart of this project and the philosophy behind it; or else he is a glorious distraction, planted by the Inner Circle to put us off the scent.

All we know for certain is that he says he comes from Watford. By Sunday morning, as the rain fell on my tent, I felt that I had been in this camp forever, had known no other life. I knew then that it was now or never, ere I surrendered completely to my inner bloke. I needed to get out before my soul was lost. And so it was that I never made it to the ending of this congregation, though I surmise that it must have been an awful apocalypse, in a Jonestown type of way. I tried to make my excuses and leave, but my exit was spotted by Darren, the camp commandant and guardian of all onsite movements. It was a close run thing, but I somehow managed to track down the keys to my car, while Darren was distracted by having to organise the rival tribes in the work tent in a murderous, atavistic tug-of-war.

In my haste to get away I abandoned my tent and all else – even my folding chair that had survived the melee –  to flee this dank field and seek the comfort of the ordinary, away from this banality of evil.  I suspect many others also fled, leaving all behind. I know this because the Inner Circle persist in emailing us, seeking to lure us back into the cult through the bait of recovering plentiful lost property.  

Back home, while slowly desensitising myself through exorcism of these of the echoes of these ingrained songs, I remained curious as to the possibility that behind all of this seductive power, there must a leader in the shadows, somewhere, manifesting this strange Blokish life form.  I let my mind wonder back to fragments of conversation I had overheard whispered among the Inner Circle.  

Listening intently, I heard sotto voce mentions of ‘tabs;’ and heard the ‘spooky’ word, muttered quietly over and over; together with an oft repeated phrase along the lines of ‘Stephen would have loved to have been here, to see what he began, what he had created.’ I ventured deep into the dark net to research these clues and began to find fragmented mentions of this spooky Stephen. Could he really be The Bloke, alive in this time though far away, perhaps campaigning in a hotter place for renewables and climate change? The web would seem to suggest so.    Should this text have affected you – or any males in your family – then please go to my website for inoculation http://www.familiesagainstcultteachings.org/Cult-Education/Cult-Warning-Signs/ Daniel Doherty June 2016   

Down Among the Leavers

Friday evening 24th June 2016

I asked you all on social media what can I do about this referendum result? ? A friend said keep writing. The activist in me said get downtown and see what my town has to say. Meet a friend in a pub. We agree on everything while half watching the cricket, as England crush the former colony Ceylon. I feel uneasy, move naturally towards the underdog, the dispossessed .Better watching this unfair match-up than media congratulating themselves on capturing ( but never predicting) this generational turning point on the other screen. i move away from my friend, as consensus will never do in my search for local vox pop.

At the back of the pub the Pilot ( please steer me safe to shore) a young crowd chaperoned by two old boys are volubly watching the Super14 French rugby final. Rugby i know about that. Safe ground. They were drinking Belgian Stella not Doom Bar ..The leader of this delightful young group of muscle and aftershave asked me directly how i voted. He is well spoken and probably a graduate, even possibly from nearby Exeter, a major player in the Euro economy.

I say i voted Remain, thinking they had too. NO they all voted leave. They are young, surely they and me are suffering some crazy voting inversion? I asked why Leave? . I said i respected their decision but hoped it was not racism or xenophobia. They said no their reasons were purely economic. I asked about the economic arguments, but not much was said in reply to that. I asked about their puzzling passion for French rugby, two millionaire owned clubs stocked by global superstars slugging it out in obscurity. On Euro soil, in Spain.

They love it cos the best in the world are free to live and earn a pension in French rugby, beyond their glory days. They said they supported Toulon at the beginning until their Australian star cheated and now they support Racing (Paris. ) Great; so British support of the underdog, one of our values. Mine too. i suggested ‘so you change your mind on a whim – like you might do over stay or go, on an impulse?’We discuss the ‘fact’ that Scots hate all English. I say no not true. I am born in Scotland.

They say they all hate ‘us’. they say they would not be welcome in Glasgow. I suggest that Glasgow is one of the friendlest places on earth. They say no. Then they turn to cheer the rugby underdog. But not the Scots underdog. I could go on but it was really absorbing and i was pleased to keep leaning in. The elder chaperones were really wary of me and getting more so, so I left. Dead pool ball bounce. The underdog won the game, led by a New Zealand superstar.

Saturday 25th June
With encouragement from far away by Stephen Taberner, I continue my one person probe into the minds and hearts of Leavers here in Devon. Yesterday my inquiry got quite ugly, but nonetheless illuminating. A bloke in a local pub was holding forth on the ‘fact’ that if the Scottish People had known the vote would have gone to Leave, then they would have voted leave too; but now they do not know what to do. He also helped us understand that there was no more oil in the North Sea.

When i challenged all of this he said ‘I know it is true cos I heard it on Radio Four.’ Turns out his interpretation of this authority was highly selective (I had heard the same programme and let him know that). Somewhat subdued, he nevertheless continued in his post- factual way on his theme that Scots and Scotland would wreck themselves. Where does this demonisation of the country of my birth come from?

I felt a tremor of being ‘othered,’ not sure whether to declare my origins or not.As we talk of other aspects of the referendum he declares that ‘Anyone who voted remain should be ‘thoroughly ashamed of themselves.’ I said ‘Oh well i voted remain and i do not feel at all ashamed.’ He was taken aback, assuming from my age and my being in ‘his’ pub that I was a Leaver.

Gathering himself he said ‘Yes, you should be ashamed. A whole generation fought and died in two wars for this country, and you dishonour them by voting to stay with the EU.’ This was vehemently delivered, shouted. Not backing off i suggested that maybe they also fought to defeat tyranny and fascism, to stop deracination of an entire continent. His anger rose to such a red-faced peak that he was shouting in my face. He called me ‘A traitor,’ that I was letting down all my parent’s generation had fought for. The landlord intervened and separated us, dragging him off, where he muttered alone to the pool cues. All this helped me understand though how strongly leaving was conflated with honouring the past, not creating a viable future for our children.

Sunday 26th June
Down among the Leavers #3 Who is pulling the leavers? My inquiry continued Sunday but this time across the estuary, looking to put some water between my questions and the incendiary reaction they provoked on Saturday.  First stop to park the bicycle was an old coaching inn famous for its Sunday morning gathering of the monied and chattering classes. No signs of panic here over the cappuccinos and over-stuffed sandwiches.  In fact I detected a self- satisfied purring, though it was hard to know what was behind that.  

This age group was relentlessly over 60 and well heeled, in an understated way. As copies of the Mail on Sunday were unfurled on the semi-circular table beneath the main bow window looking out on the street, I joined the edge of the table to generally insert myself into the proceedings. The main topic was the future leadership of the Tory party. When i asked if Labour were to be a party to whatever might unfold there was low grade sniggering.

One man said he had heard that ‘Corbyn was resigning today.’ Someone else said he may as well, as all his troops have left him. This topic of possible left wing opposition now disregarded, we returned to the question of the new tory leader. This discussion was led by a woman reading out commentary on the runners and riders from page 3 of the Mail. No one demurred at these pen portraits.  

Some were easily dismissed without discussion; ‘can’t stand the woman, end of’ etc. Boris’s roguish ways continue to earn admiration, even though they agreed that he had been mendacious over his campaign. When pushed on this, they said that nevertheless, he was a strong character and would pull the people behind him. The conversation then turned to the impact of the markets on their holiday money. I was getting nowhere so I was soon back in the saddle.

Further down the river the story was the same, and again newspaper led. Individual thinking seemed to have been suspended, as was any concern for the longer term generational issues. Needing some edge to my meandering, I returned to the scene of yesterday’s histrionics, to discover that the word in the pub was out that I was leading some kind of investigation, which was interesting in itself.  Far from hostility, the Sunday crowd were keen to know what this was about, this ‘survey’ of mine.

I explained that i was genuinely interested to know what was in the minds of leavers.  Soon there was a small queue. Someone asked if this survey would be published. I said perhaps. The richest conversation was with a couple, both running small businesses, who voted leave as a protest against big business and big brother politics pushing them around and telling them what was best. They were emphatic in their distancing of themselves from ‘bigotry and xenophobia,’ and I believed them. They were fearful, though, at the way things were unfolding, and that the same elite would be moving the pieces around in the same old way. They were more than interested in why I thought remain a good idea, from a personal as much from any ideological perspective. They were utterly dismissive of the idea of any second referendum. On the TV, a French second goal sent the Irish to their knees. Time to go after this really rewarding and sane exchange. Down among the Leavers #3 

Who is pulling the leavers? My inquiry continued Sunday but this time across the estuary, looking to put some water between my questions and the incendiary reaction they provoked on Saturday.  First stop to park the bicycle was an old coaching inn famous for its Sunday morning gathering of the monied and chattering classes. No signs of panic here over the cappuccinos and over-stuffed sandwiches.  In fact I detected a self- satisfied purring, though it was hard to know what was behind that.  This age group was relentlessly over 60 and well heeled, in an understated way.

As copies of the Mail on Sunday were unfurled on the semi-circular table beneath the main bow window looking out on the street, I joined the edge of the table to generally insert myself into the proceedings. The main topic was the future leadership of the Tory party. When i asked if Labour were to be a party to whatever might unfold there was low grade sniggering. One man said he had heard that ‘Corbyn was resigning today.’ Someone else said he may as well, as all his troops have left him. This topic of possible left wing opposition now disregarded, we returned to the question of the new tory leader. This discussion was led by a woman reading out commentary on the runners and riders from page 3 of the Mail.

No one demurred at these pen portraits.  Some were easily dismissed without discussion; ‘can’t stand the woman, end of’ etc. Boris’s roguish ways continue to earn admiration, even though they agreed that he had been mendacious over his campaign. When pushed on this, they said that nevertheless, he was a strong character and would pull the people behind him. The conversation then turned to the impact of the markets on their holiday money. I was getting nowhere so I was soon back in the saddle.

Further down the river the story was the same, and again newspaper led. Individual thinking seemed to have been suspended, as was any concern for the longer term generational issues. Needing some edge to my meandering, I returned to the scene of yesterday’s histrionics, to discover that the word in the pub was out that I was leading some kind of investigation, which was interesting in itself.  Far from hostility, the Sunday crowd were keen to know what this was about, this ‘survey’ of mine. I explained that i was genuinely interested to know what was in the minds of leavers.  Soon there was a small queue.

Someone asked if this survey would be published. I said perhaps. The richest conversation was with a couple, both running small businesses, who voted leave as a protest against big business and big brother politics pushing them around and telling them what was best. They were emphatic in their distancing of themselves from ‘bigotry and xenophobia,’ and I believed them. They were fearful, though, at the way things were unfolding, and that the same elite would be moving the pieces around in the same old way. They were more than interested in why I thought remain a good idea, from a personal as much from any ideological perspective. They were utterly dismissive of the idea of any second referendum. On the TV, a French second goal sent the Irish to their knees. Time to go after this really rewarding and sane exchange. 

LONELY DANSETTE. 

 It plays in my bedroom on my lonely Dansette 

The laments of Dylan of love and regret

 Words weaving through dreams my identity shaping 

Blowing wide a hole in suburbia gaping.   

Suffocation of the Fifties surrendered forever 

In homage I commit to this tireless endeavour 

To capture in writing HIS every stanza – 

This Sunday I declare a Zimmerman bonanza.   I

return to the Remington, clattering the keys Recalling the words – or so I believe 

Of the original lyrics of ‘Lay Lady Lay’ Catching every nuance, each measured delay.  

 There were no sleeve notes with the lyrics back then 

No Google discography to reveal where and when 

A disc was first pressed by which A and R men Or whether the artist preferred Buddha, or Zen.   

My appetite insatiable for fresh Dylan titles I steal singles from shops of his latest recitals 

To play them ad nauseam – hear every defect 

Each scratch a stigmata on my solitary project. 

The words they come slowly, the words they come mean 

They wink off the foolscap so pristine, so clean 

As if He had written them, today, in my room 

His musings inspired by the stygian gloom  

Of my black painted walls with their Lautrec posters 

Overflowing ashtrays and tattered beer coasters 

I imagine Him here, admiring my typing 

While gently suggesting that I improve the lighting.   

I play the track once more just for accuracies sake  

To reflect in amazement that it needed only one take 

To consign to the blackest of vinyl forever 

The works of the master of my emotional weather.   

My mother calls from below for some quiet 

She tires of my singular musical diet; I reply that the music will terminate soon 

But its part of my homework to transpose a tune.   

Too late, too late now, the spell has been broken 

His words on vellum the remaining token Of my love, my respect and my admiration For the natural born leader of our lost generation.