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Enter…
Joe Biden:
To think that we spent twenty years
To lead this backward land from tears!
Blood and treasure in the sand
Lost for this unyielding land!
I opposed it from the start,
You cannot change these people’s hearts;
And for some girls in Kabuls' needs
I will not let my soldiers bleed.
And please don’t talk of poetry
That world is simple, trouble-free,
And name me just one poet who
Has once for freedom given his due.
Go on, name one, here I am
US President, Joe Biden!
In fact, you conjure from the shades
Just one who has a difference made!
THERE IS A CRACK 0F THUNDER, LIGHTS FLICKER
AND THEN THERE IS HEARD A TAPPING OF A STICK…..
Enter….
Lord Byron:
Well I was resting when I heard
From somewhere else a far-off word,
Summoning me with living breath,
From my rest in peaceful death.
Ah, I see, a President
Of the USA has some intent
To hear of my last voyage to Greece,
So that an empire’s grasp would cease.
From a Yankee I would say,
I would rather have some way
A little nod, a signal small,
Than an Emperor’s cheery call.
He scorns the poets - I agree!
No dissent he’ll have from me.
A scribbler’s life is not complete,
They must in the world compete.
So of that voyage to Greece I’ll tell,
And draw out every parallel.
Along the way so you can see,
How runs the highway of the free.
So, Joe, please let me interject
And show where centuries intersect;
For the purpose of this play,
I can here all things survey.
Now both Greece and Afghanistan
Shared their warlords, tribes and clans;
Both with local rivalries
That had festered on for centuries.
And there the balances of power
Are watched like hawks from hour to hour.
Allegiances will change in length,
According to perceived strength.
So when news came that I had made
A loan, for ships towards Greece to sail,
Ottoman’s navy would withdraw
From posts by Missolonghi's shore.
And when news of my death was heard
Supplies and credit were deferred;
Volunteers faltered in their tallies,
Because round me they could not rally.
Thus when support from Afghans brave
Who fought their country for to save
Was cut, to leave them there forlorn,
A fatal signal sounded forth.
Now you’ve complained of money’s waste
By those corrupt – a true disgrace!
And why should Uncle Sam you say
For those corrupt and disloyal pay?
Those Afghans loyal to tricks were put:
So some could claim a bigger cut.
Their officers would the listings swell,
Neglecting them, their needs as well.
It was just the same for me.
I made the sad discovery
That officers of my fine Brigade
Had claimed and creamed off phantom pay.
Captains, majors conjured up,
So that they could better sup,
Tribesmen promoted beyond their dreams,
I raged when I unearthed their schemes.
In the end I closed that down –
With Suliote chiefs a mighty row.
Understandable but sad, it showed
Encircled I by charming rogues.
They were like our Highlanders of old:
Ungovernable, but brave and bold;
And in the end they had loved me,
The parting songs true eulogies.
But I digress, Joe Biden, here;
But this crucial point must now appear:
A strategic point that came to fore,
Some years after I was no more.
Greece, part of empire Ottoman,
Whose ships made sure their writ would run,
When Navarino cut that link
Then for sure their star would sink
Those they call the Taliban,
Found haven sure in Pakistan.
So I'd say if you'd cut that link –
Their fortunes would have had to sink.
In the end the reasons you
Had found that that, you could not do
Meant in the end you could not win,
But your example may yet spin
A future different in that land,
Can anyone those barbarians stand?
When they’ve had a glimpse of light,
Good government at least in sight.
The Greeks, the Greeks, to me they'd say
Could not be trusted night or day;
But to them I would reply:
‘Redeeming qualities you will find
In the humble countryman,
Corrupted not by devious plan.
And when at last misrule will lift
You'll find, maybe, that things will shift’.
One final thing I'll say to you:
Towards the land of Greece I threw
My energies, avoiding those
Warlords brave whose actions showed
Their visions were but localised,
To rule the roost with their own tribe.
My words, my acts, a demonstration
Not for a faction but a nation.
That nation soon would come to be
Independent proud and free
The first true nation European
For her – deserved poetic paean!
Joe Biden:
Well, Lord Byron it has been
A privilege to meet you here;
And I must withdraw my hasty words
That poets all are quite absurd.
For you sure made a sacrifice,
Your fame, your fortune and your life;
I abandoned Freedom’s cause,
And took the politician’s course.
Realpolitik, my dear Lord B
Scorned by you but key for me;
You lost your life in foreign land,
But by my judgment I must stand.
That blood was never mine to shed,
That treasure earned by those instead
Who cared not of these foreign lands,
– So by my ruling I must stand.
Sure, me and Kamala regret
The lives that now seem all too set
On women, forced by Taliban men
Returned to homes and robbed of pen
And of potential – chattels and
Their contributions to their land
Wished away and cruel ignored,
With faces to be seen no more.
But me and Kamala sleep at night,
Oh yes we do, for might is right.
There is what is, and what might be,
But that is not for us to see.
Find out more about
Byron's journey to Greece below...
Described by one of his friends as 'very clever and agreeable,
but vain, overbearing, conceited, suspicious and jealous';
another wrote 'God bless him for a gallant spirit and a kind one'.
When he went to Greece to support its struggle for
Independence his true qualities came to the fore....
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LINK TO THE FIRST FAB FOUR'S
WHERE YOU CAN FIND LOTS OF STUFF
ABOUT THE YOUNGER ROMANTICS
(WILL TRANSFER OVER TO THIS SITE IN DUE COURSE)
YES, JOHN KEATS, GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON,
LEIGH HUNT AND SHELLEY WERE THE BEATLES
OF THEIR DAY - AND NOW HAVE THEIR
VERY OWN ALBUM TOO!
CLICK BELOW TO STREAM
Lyrics and background info here
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JUST PUBLISHED - JOHN'S NEW BOOK
AVAILABLE HERE
The Closest Thing in History explores the surprising similarities
that exist between the biggest band in music – The Beatles –
and another fab four – the Younger Romantic poets Keats,
Byron, Leigh Hunt and Shelley – who were responsible for
shaking up the cultural zeitgeist in the early nineteenth century.
Both drew on inspirational figures who then turned on them,
(that's William Wordsworth and Elvis Presley!),
Lord Byron generated an early form of Beatlemania,
and both had interlocking creative relationships that yield
genuine insights when placed side by side.
And then, as we can trace the actual impact of the Younger Romantics
on history there is the chance to consider - if the comparison between
them has been accepted - how the Beatles' afterlife could unfold.
A fascinating must-read for all those with a
passion for music, poetry and cultural rebels!
'More than a Wordsworth of praise for this new book'
- read John Bezzini's review on the Beatles Bookstore.com here
ALSO BY JOHN...
And check out John's Romantics-related website
John on YouTube
'This channel is so underrated
you deserve a million subscribers!!'
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TODAY'S DICTATOR
30.5.2023
With visions false of destiny
And claims to Ukraine's land
The truth is more prosaic,
He's just a common thief
Who wants his hands on Ukraine's gold,
Its cornfields and its beef
He's just a common thief
Who wants his hands on Ukraine's gold,
Its cornfields and its beef.
LAW NO MORE
March 2022
RUSSIA O RUSSIA
- WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT?
April 2022
Russia O Russia
Do we see you now plain
With your masses complicit in crime?
Though your brave marchers few
Quickly hustled from view
May redeem in the passage of time.
What gives you the right
With such malice and spite
To lay others’ cities to waste?
Because of one man
And his barbarous plan
Is your land not forever disgraced?
And don't you recall
How back in the war
Your people were bombed and displaced?
And how you take pride
In how they defied
The Nazis and to them laid waste?
Now don’t you defile
Through this warfare so vile
Their devotion and blood sacrifice?
And hospital wards
And refugee hordes
Reveal its so pitiful price?
A young girl in tears
For the pets that she’d left
To starve in the rubble of town;
And flats opened wide
To the cold air outside
By brutish bombs raining on down.
The stories of pain
Which again and again
Are transmitted over the news,
Are too overwhelming
To lay out in verse
But will be long in the memory fused.
Now let the gentle the free and the brave
Step up to the challenge laid down,
Now let the lawmakers, crunchers of numbers
Work out the amends to be found.
Now let the fighters and warriors true
Who here do an empire resist,
Find that their strivings are met with success
With peace no more crudely dismissed.
And Russia O Russia
May you discover
The way to the pathways of ruth,
And not harden your heart
To forever depart
But open your eyes to the truth.
'In the end, hatred will disappear and dictators will die'
Volodymr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, 17/5/2022
'Forge arms in your defence to bear'
- P.B. Shelley
'Yet Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying
Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind'
- Lord Byron
UKRAINE DREAMIN'
June 2022
Come on let's dream a better future
Than the current horror show,
As laid out by a writer exiled
From Putinland he'd had to go.
Bearded, from a small room talking
With an uncertain life ahead,
‘How should things be?’ the question came
And this is roughly what he said:
'Ukraine and Russia have a past
Entwined in history's passing flow,
Closely bound and complicated
But from that past we have to go!
We have to think of both proud peoples
And their future lives and wealth,
And how to build prosperity
And how to build well-being, health
For the children of the future
So they perish not in mud and snow
Fighting for an old idea
No, from that past we have to go!
Catherine the Great and Greater Russia,
Tsarist dreams and Stalin's crimes,
The coveting of wheatfield bounty
No, we must leave that behind!
I can see a path ahead
Where our lands can safely go
And our descendents forward tread
Into the future they can grow.
As a Russian I pay tribute
To the skills and industries
Of Ukraine and its fine people –
If they can thrive then why can’t we?
If Ukraine wants to face the West,
Well, that's the way they want to go;
And so the path of least resistance
Is found by going with the flow.
In the world we now inhabit
We should be partners for the greater good:
Ukraine draws on Russian resources
Russia deals in trade not blood.
It would gain by resource trading
Its people gain from profit shared;
Ukraine busied with its business
And the world from hunger spared
So that's it, it's so damn simple
So damn simple – one, two, three!
So let’s cast off that bad old thinking
And as partners, neighbours be'.
And with that the image flickered,
And with that he disappeared,
Leaving me to mourn the now
Yet with a sense of foresight clear.
‘WHAT THEY CANNOT STEAL THEY BREAK’
January 2023
'What they cannot steal they break'
A mindless envy so to slake;
If they cannot win in war
The child and woman must be shorn
Of heat and food and all those things
Collective minds and effort brings.
Leaving signs of savage reign
When forced from ill-deserved gain.
From havens safe both near and far
In last resort their birds of war
Prey on homes and human lives
With scruples none and fell allies
Now lies disguise these grotesque acts
With twisted truths and garbled facts;
So if in dreams truth does appear
Next day the court will make it clear
Those dreams are wrong and quite forbad
The dreamers will be classed as mad
And made to pay a hefty fine
So they will hedge their bets next time.
And yet, Russia, you can’t unleash
Such violence without creating grief
In your homes, your own backyard
Prepare to learn some lessons hard
Derived from living in the past
Refusing every single chance
To change and some new furrow plough…
We see you getting angry now
A forerunner of the foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine
The story of Byron's contribution to Greek independence
and how a nation gained its freedom from an empire
Prometheus Unbound,
the concluding verse,
published in 1820
"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, not falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory”
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