The Caratacus Blog

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54782942011-12-08T13:25:55.238+11:00The Caratacus BlogNam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant? (Tacitus, Annales XII, xxxvii) Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.comBlogger421100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-58605238435989539472011-05-26T10:04:00.000+10:002011-05-26T10:04:40.668+10:00The Mermaid & Flea

An evening down the Pub; & dire Aftermath: With John Whitworth, Ann Drysdale, Les Murray, Geoff Page, Peter Wyton, Anna Evans, Rick Mullin, Stephen Edgar, Patricia Wallace Jones, Ben Jonson, Timothy Murphy, Marly Youmans, Jan Iwaskiewicz, Nicola Daly, Susan Taylor, John Donne, Salli Shepherd &c. &c. Hangover remedies from John Whitworth & Alan Gould. Followed by spiritually-uplifting

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-4229292751202387002010-12-19T23:34:00.008+11:002010-12-20T00:12:07.035+11:00Off the Map

...a kind of conversation that needs no tongue... — David Malouf, An Imaginary Life Shuffling in bearskin trousers, his mind Burning fervid, Each hard breath shaping new lyrics — Shaggy-haired Ovid. Love, once his own witty game, is now dragging Him after her face, and far over The limes of his mapped world, the wide Final river— Until, reaching that long-grassed bank, he morphs

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-15452324528344863972010-11-23T10:06:00.000+11:002010-11-23T10:06:00.341+11:00The Chimaera’s 2010 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Good luck to all! Alison Brackenbury — ‘Over the field’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Brackenbury.html Anna Evans — ‘Why I Am Attracted to Men with Dyslexia’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Evans.html Janet Kenny — ‘Last Danceֹ’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Poems/Kenny.html Ralph La Rosa — ‘Sauntering’ http://www.the-chimaera.com/March2010/Theme/Poems/

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-61116942866078755482010-11-23T10:05:00.000+11:002010-11-23T10:05:39.901+11:00The Chimaera’s 2010 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-91215700808117786552010-11-16T16:26:00.002+11:002010-11-19T15:38:21.236+11:00I was walking across a bridge...

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said ‘Stop! don’t do it!’ ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he said. I said, ‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’ He said, ‘Like what?’ I said, ‘Well… are you religious or atheist?’ He said, ‘Religious.’ I said, ‘Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?’ 'Christian.’ I said, ‘Me too!

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-54924242387601978402010-08-26T06:05:00.000+10:002010-08-26T06:05:14.904+10:00Bright Star

Bright Star Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-23940747623695879982010-08-11T03:20:00.002+10:002010-08-11T03:20:30.950+10:00Old West Country Saying

From pompous Professors and pond’rous Po-Pundits and Prats who go Plonk on the Net, may the Goddess deliver us!

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-13557678956521257522010-08-09T14:49:00.010+10:002010-10-02T22:50:39.682+10:00Bigville

On submission

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-23297158400682628812010-08-07T15:46:00.010+10:002010-08-07T23:53:46.618+10:00Hiroshima: Historians Reassess

‘Hiroshima: Historians Reassess’, Gar Alperovitz, Foreign Policy, Issue 99, Summer 1995 Dr. Gar Alperovitz is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Government and Politics, former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; a founding Fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Politics; a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-47930017299642191402010-06-09T08:57:00.002+10:002010-06-09T08:57:24.842+10:00FLEA doings

Come to THE FLEA Circus and Bug Rave — a cast of trillions! http://www.the-flea.com/

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-39372784714439967442010-04-26T08:16:00.002+10:002010-04-28T17:41:23.166+10:00Wing Walker

. Named after his dad, who walked on Wacos and Stearmans in the Twenties, and hovered above county fairs and Moose Lodge picnics holding on with one hand, waving to the crowd— B-17 with 26 flights out and back suddenly on its 27th return taking heavy fire through the fuselage, evasive action, no functioning navigational instruments, no way to get back and night coming on, but no engine damage

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-36344908914140042622010-04-26T06:18:00.005+10:002010-04-26T06:23:06.075+10:00Debriefing

. As the fifth rum fueled his memory, he’d taxi along the runway, up to the high blackness, away from the Sunday-night armchair, away from the telly, Norths versus Parra, the scrums a ridiculous joke, and, nineteen-years-old, strap himself back into the war: switch on the cold night, switch on the electric suit, switch on his much more intimate suit of fear, rehearse the nightmare crawl to

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-73590881705007511302010-04-25T08:55:00.002+10:002010-04-25T09:13:42.896+10:00John Stevens' ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC day. My father, John Samuel Stevens served as an Air Gunner in the RAAF in World War II. He went straight into the RAAF from school and flew in many raids over Europe including over Germany, in Wellington and Halifax bombers. His position was tail gunner. Bomber Command took more casualties than any other British service in WWII. Of those, the biggest proportion was tail gunners.

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-30290080934670802932010-04-24T15:13:00.000+10:002010-04-24T15:13:06.949+10:00Racist violence and genocide in Australia — sources of information

http://slackbastard.blogspot.com/2006/01/racist-attacks-on-australia-day.html -- "Aboriginal children in Rockhampton, Queensland have been shot in an alleged racially-motivated assault on Australia Day according to The Australian and The Advertiser. The first attack was reported the day after Australia Day, while a second assault was only revealed to have occurred days later when the child

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-12655435499057062422010-03-04T16:57:00.002+11:002010-03-04T16:57:33.538+11:00Soundzine Green Contagion

Yr Hble & Obdt has a poem and reading in the new issue of Soundzine: The Green Contagion. I am also the reader for the poems of Howard Miller and Martin Elster. One of my poems, The Hidden Muse, was selected by the Editors as one of the best ten poems ever published in Soundzine.

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-26528111026379974022010-03-01T09:49:00.001+11:002010-03-01T09:55:08.284+11:00Alan Gould, featured poet in The Seventh Chimaera

Amor Fati Overnight In Hospital The wardsman shaving my pubic hair is shyer than I am here. We contrive to talk from further selves for manhood's sake. Amid sea-green professionals I watch myself on screen. The catheter probes my blood-vessels like a mouse in a maze-experiment, finds as they expect, no more. The talon of arteries that holds my heart erect to life has one weak claw. I feel

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-57177291280340019352010-02-24T08:59:00.001+11:002010-02-24T09:02:06.811+11:00New Shit Creek Surge in War on Poetry

Supreme Metaphycsickal Commnander of Shit Creek WoP forces, Field Marshall Sir Nigel Holt (A.A., G.S.C.E., A.S.B.O. and Bar), supported by SCR President Rose Kelleher and Prime Minister Angela France, today announced a new Surge in the War on Poetry. "Our best Poetic shock troops of Issue 11 have been airlifted by Pegasus transports into the tribal areas of The Realms of Gold, which bards in

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-63592290338207435992010-02-23T05:51:00.000+11:002010-02-23T05:51:01.607+11:00The Flea Gloweth Deepest Rubedo

A Flea moreover which transmuteth that which is base imperfect Mettle into Gold, & whych projecteth many a Stone Philosophickal or Nugget Poetickal thereby; as witnesseth Philip Quinlan, Leo Yankevich, Joseph Salemi, Fr. Robert J. Pecotte, Geoff Page, Amit Majmudar, Rose Kelleher, Nigel Holt, Bill Greenwell, Alan Gould, Louis Gallo, Angela France, Nausheen Eusuf, Stephen Edgar, Ann Drysdale,

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-7622947823812417342010-02-22T09:50:00.002+11:002010-02-22T09:50:59.058+11:00Atrocities

‘If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.’ —Nelson Mandela

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-52157088565991685592010-02-15T18:03:00.000+11:002010-02-15T18:03:19.351+11:00The Hive Mind

From ‘Why the web has gone sour’ —SMH " ...One of the main targets of Lanier's critique is the concept of the "wisdom of the crowds" or the "hive mind". This is the idea beloved of so many social media enthusiasts that the collective wisdom of a large number of people, generally harnessed online, will exceed that of the individual. Wikipedia is the classic example often cited in support of this

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-22126867388653111572010-02-04T16:09:00.000+11:002010-02-04T16:09:19.179+11:00Depressed?

"People who spend a lot of time surfing the internet are more likely to show signs of depression, British scientists said on Wednesday... "..."What is clear is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies...." —Reuters

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-59990136386099993892010-01-10T20:58:00.002+11:002010-01-10T20:58:43.244+11:00Poem in CounterPunch

I have a poem in CounterPunch, ‘Les Tricoteuses’. It refers to some of the slanders smeared on Derek Walcott by the Politically Correct Pack, including those on the internet and elsewhere who took the opportunity to say the most vile things about Walcott without any evidence at all.

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-88692619344168782262010-01-08T11:23:00.001+11:002010-01-08T11:25:00.126+11:00A Recovered Time

“...Humans have this strangeness. Equipped with memory and imagination, we try also to inhabit the past moment. If we are attentive, tactful, we can experience, to some degree, the likeness of bygone lives. My own work has long applied this idea. Naturally, this likeness will be a form of virtual rather than actual living, and if we lack attentiveness and tact, then our retrospectives can

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-34059221626286778302010-01-07T09:20:00.010+11:002010-01-07T09:38:59.098+11:00The White Rose

The White Rose — heraldic emblem of Yorkshire, where I was born. Die Weiße Rose — resistance against genocide, racism and fascist orthodoxy. Nam si vos omnibus imperitare vultis, sequitur ut omnes servitutem accipiant? — “For if you would rule the world, does it follow that the world must welcome servitude?” (Tacitus' version of Caratacus in Annals, 12.37.)

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-39306459616869334552010-01-07T09:04:00.001+11:002010-01-07T09:09:24.864+11:00Resist genocide

When does it become genocide? "As an Israeli, I protest against the Israeli blockade. If I were an Egyptian, I would protest against the Egyptian blockade. As a citizen of this planet, I protest against both." —Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-19648130898280346712009-12-21T05:16:00.004+11:002009-12-21T08:29:53.016+11:00DIVALIA ANGERONAE XII Kal Ian 21 DEC

21 DEC: XII Kal Ian NP: SATURNALIA Feriae; DIVALIA ANGERONAE: public sacrifice offered in Acculeian Curia —Religio Romana Roman Calendar Angerona is a Roman Goddess with an iconography so odd that not even the ancients knew quite what She was about. She was represented holding Her finger to Her bound mouth in a gesture (apparently) requesting quiet. Some ancients believed that She was thus a

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-26088723630862498502009-12-18T09:52:00.002+11:002009-12-18T09:52:44.226+11:00The Non-Conformist

Breaking the rules in front of a group is the relationship of the thespian to his audience.

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-49293111521715989922009-12-16T17:35:00.002+11:002009-12-16T17:35:34.774+11:00Happy Days

when you're a poet you've chosen to be alone —Pablo Omar

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-21996685446012240722009-12-16T03:23:00.000+11:002009-12-16T03:23:31.265+11:00Beyond the Pale

A poet who's acceptable is dead. —Anthony Weir, Beyond the Pale

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-15597597123718503682009-12-05T05:50:00.000+11:002009-12-05T05:50:03.260+11:00The Season of THE FLEA

You've got to pick up every stitch, The rabbit’s running in the ditch, Beatniks are out to make it rich, Oh no! Must be the Season of the Witch... http://www.the-flea.com Thomas Zimmerman, Marly Youmans, Gail White, Timothy Murphy, Rick Mullin, David W. Landrum, Rose Kelleher, Clive James, Jan Iwaszkiewicz, Midge Goldberg, Richard Epstein, Ann Drysdale, Kevin Cutrer, Norman Ball, Gene Auprey,

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-67306691335816066162009-12-03T15:55:00.005+11:002009-12-06T10:30:57.453+11:00Flea Fanciers

Comments on The Flea * "The Flea is a wondrous new 'zine, marked by the rare imagination and verve of Paul Stevens. What a sparkling, spanking-new idea for a literary magazine!" —Marly Youmans, The Palace at 2:00 a.m. * "Paul Stevens’ latest editorial achievement, The Flea, is now online–worth perusing as much for the idiosyncratic house style as for the excellent poetry contained within by

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-68013409195100683202009-11-26T06:53:00.013+11:002009-12-21T05:24:19.302+11:00Fleaing the Trolls

I have been left with no alternative consistent with honour other than to resign from Eratosphere, a forum where many of the poets I publish meet to discuss various topics, after a campaign there and on other boards by a handful of very vocal members who in loose coalition consistently trolled announcements concerning SCR, The Flea and The Chimaera because I had dared to publish four poems (one

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-61121450405045847002009-11-18T17:27:00.008+11:002009-11-19T19:06:32.707+11:00Duppy Conqueror

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go! Yes, me friend, me good friend, Dem say we free again. Yes, me friend, We deh a street again. The bars could not hold me; Force could not control me now. They try to keep me down, But Jah put I around. Yeah! Yes, I've been

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-85319825910558211112009-11-17T16:15:00.007+11:002009-11-19T10:11:56.614+11:00Traitors, communists, bashings, and other weird stuff

I've regularly protested against funding of Private schools with taxpayers money. I protested against the Vietnam War, with tens of thousands of other Australians, and we were told we were traitors to Australia. For wearing a Vietnam Moratorium badge I was, walking alone on separate occasions, twice beaten up by Ross "The Skull" May and members of the Australian Nazi Party (REAL nazis, not yer

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-16334304981980643572009-11-17T11:43:00.000+11:002009-11-17T11:43:05.375+11:00The most opressed people in the world

Yet the Western liberal-left, to their eternal shame, just let it happen without protest. Palestinians Consider Going to the UNO for a State; Israeli Right threatens to Recognize its own Colonies in Retaliation ...A Palestinian state is important because the Palestinian people are stateless. Being without citizenship in a state leaves people vulnerable and without rights, since there is no

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-53479567174960347632009-10-30T11:39:00.062+11:002010-04-14T17:35:33.085+10:00Partisan politics, personal animosity and poetry

A (Re-)Statement of Editorial Principle and Intent Allowing political orientations to determine whose poetry one reads is the infallible sign of a poetastical mind, for the poetaster always treats art as secondary to other more important considerations. Putting politics first and art second is exactly what these folks do, so, QED - they are poetasters: political animals who dabble in poetry as

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-69532091504863748502009-04-17T19:47:00.000+10:002009-04-17T19:51:12.418+10:00THE FLEA Hoppeth Ever Nigh

Mr. Paul Stevens, ever stedfaste in the conviction that he hath indeed in Former Times befported and comported himfelf during a long & difreputable Paft Life as a Fellowe and Boone-Companion of Jack Donne Esq.,Ben Jonfon, Sir John Suckling, Richard Lovelace and his partickular Frende and Crony Mr. Andrew Marvell of Hull & Nun Appleton Houfe, wishes to presage the imminent Publickation of an

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-1162862480573722452006-11-07T12:20:00.000+11:002006-11-11T10:58:09.745+11:00The Shit Creek Review

Going up Shit Creek was like traveling back to the earliest beginning of the world, where vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were king. A turgid creek, a great silence, an impenetrable forest, the air was warm, thick, sluggish; the odour, faintly woofy. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.- Joseph ConradThe Shit Creek Review is at http://

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-1129811327486227812005-10-20T22:28:00.000+10:002006-11-11T10:58:09.318+11:00Beggars

To beg the question surely begs the question: Must questions exist merely because answers loiter down blind alleys? Ragged beggars of questions tout on every common corner, litter the portals of our premises, flaunt their suppositions for our pity: their middles undistributed, their hocs entirely post, their sequiturs all non. Ad hominems, slope-sliders, logic-choppers: shaking their poor

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-1128210108422268322005-10-02T09:41:00.000+10:002006-11-11T10:58:09.225+11:00The Town Pub of Crapulence

I will arise and go now, and go down to the pub, And a celebration have there, of beer and spirits made, Nine schooners will I drink there, then give my eyes a rub, And make a lunge at the nearest winsome maid. And I will drink more beer there, for beer comes pouring slow, Pouring from the Hahn's Lager tap, into the frosty glass; There midnight's rather woozy in the bar-lights' lurid glow, And

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-1128135473929897112005-10-01T12:57:00.000+10:002006-11-11T10:58:09.144+11:00Pub-Fever

Oi must go down to the pub again, to the raucous pub and the crowd,And all Oi ask is a pint of Old, and a band that plays too loud,And the bouncer's kick and the pokies' song, and my eyeballs shaking,And a hot tart with a cheeky face, and a bar-stool breaking.

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478294.post-1124260780678099022005-08-17T16:38:00.000+10:002006-11-11T10:58:08.981+11:00The Days of The Royal George

A song of the Young Push, The Royal George Hotel, corner of King and Sussex Streets, Sydney, 1964IYou'd walk in the bar and enter the realmof the bright and the heightened soul,where the wild boys drank and the wild girls too,and the decks would tip and roll,as we voyaged in schooners and glass canoesdown rivers of words to the sea,set our course by the stars to fabled shoreswhere the myths that

Caratacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03756635616980386913noreply@blogger.com0