EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
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Trussed Up
Simon Haines
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
We’re trussed up like a kipper
by this trickle-down wheeze of theirs.
They don’t believe in it themselves,
they know it doesn’t work.
If it worked, of course, there’d be no point
in giving handouts to the rich.
No — we should all be aspirational —
opt to enrich ourselves,
and gain from their trickle-up.
While labouring at this Herculean task
Of becoming rich and powerful
We’ll witness the way those already there
Piss on us, the poor and powerless.
Simon Haines is a language teacher, textbook writer and folk musician. He lives in Suffolk. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email info@smokestack-books.co.uk.
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