Isabel White

On the occasion of the latest mass shooting

You can keep your thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers are made of lead “We’ll shoot you down”, is what they said. Where is the hope in thoughts and prayers that bring us back to where they led, back to the streets where our children bled? And still they rise, the sales of arms and still they rise, the calls for calm. But when the riot act is read thoughts and prayers only get you dead.

Ancestry

Its complicated, this idea of the full English, that somehow, we are one nation; one nation under the cosh.

This idea, born of sweat and toil; himself, self styled laird of croft, clan and kirk, of sword and sward, tilling his depleted soil; the other, a tributer, chipping away at Kernow’s granite spine, still trying to work it out; undermining it. This myth of me that binds me to this earth, this land; of nationhood, misunderstood; of custom, folk and song, of all that’s just plain wrong, for truly we never were one nation.

One, was a Scot born of Scots; the other, a latter-day king of Kernow, both toying with the notion of just getting out.

Consequences

You asked if I could spare any change; I gave you the quid that killed you. I guessed you’d end it one of these days. ‘Don’t be sorry’, that’s what you said. But I was, and now you’re dead and I gave you the quid that killed you.

The day that Greta came

The day that Greta came the sky wept for joy; washed the College clean of its green carapace, the day that Greta stole a march on February. The day that Greta came she set the pace, enlisted mother earth to come to her aid, to strike at the heart of indifference, at the deaf ears of all who put profit before planet. The day that Greta came the cynics of course, closed their blind eye. But mother earth sent us a greater gift, shackled us to the land, taught us the lesson of our age; we mess with them both, at our peril. You did not count on Greta’s ire; that day, when Greta came; she who will not be silenced, while the earth is on fire.

I spend, therefore I am I’m with my Mr Medicine his Covid cure-alls, the origin of specious. I’m shopping for a pangolin (with its unprecedented scales; weighed in the balance, it’s less conspicuous in traffic). Bagged a bargain the last horn of Africa; been there now, done that. What price death these days; the all-pervading smell of the clientele? What price easy meat, fast fashion, smart phone, dumb ass? Discounted trees, how much are these?