Frodo Soup

Phrasebook by Jo Shapcott (1991) I’m standing here inside my skin, which will do for a Human Remains Pouch for the moment. Look down there (up there). Quickly. Slowly. This is my front room where I’m lost in the action. Live from a war, on screen. I am Englishwoman. I don’t understand you, What’s the matter? You are right. You are wrong. Things are going well (badly). Am I disturbing you? TV is showing bliss as taught to pilots: Blend, Low silhouette, Irregular shape, Small, Secluded. (Please write it down. Please speak slowly.) Bliss is how it was in this very room when I raised my body to his mouth, when he even balanced me in the air, or at least I thought so and yes the pilots say yes they have caught it through the Side-Looking Airbone Radar, and through the J-Stars. I am expecting a gentleman (a young gentleman, two gentlemen, some gentlemen). Please send him (them) up at once. This is really beautiful. Yes they have seen u...

Lament by Gillian Clarke (1992) Listen to the poet read her poem here For the green turtle with her pulsing burden, in search of the breeding ground. For her eggs laid in their nest of sickness. For the cormorant in his funeral silk, the veil of iridescence on the sand, the shadow on the sea. For the ocean’s lap with its mortal stain. For Ahmed at the closed border. For the soldier with his uniform of fire. For the gunsmith and the armourer, the boy fusilier who joined for the company, the farmer’s sons, in it for the music. For the hook-beaked turtles, the dugong and the dolphin, the whale struck dumb by the missile’s thunder. For the tern, the gull and the restless wader, the long migrations and the slow dying, the veiled sun and the stink of anger. For the burnt earth and the sun put out, the scalded ocean and the blazing well. For vengeance, and the ashes of language. Gillian Clarke's own comments on Lament from her website "‘Lament’ is an elegy, ...