Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmısınız
hasn’t calmed your brutal fish hook hands
and a surplus of mud is also there
we took to asking for burnt greens but not clearly enough
we got samphire and honey and a terrible hurt
it’s just one way to be amiss in this world,
those of us hapless but with enough wood sorrel
did know this once, with our pickings mealy and mouth-eyed,
we’d be trying to clear woodland hurdles and sun-ache
we’d try to be small enough to smell it
By Nia Davies.
The Underground Island
One premise, not rigorously applied, was that you should be able to live somewhere in Britain without money. So with a few exceptions we offered free accommodation, ad lib, to who-ever made it to the island. No references, no deposit. In the early days, no council tax. No notice to quit, no eviction, however extreme the acting-out. It was how the Welfare State was supposed to work. Incidentally, as Machiavelli reminds us, this was also how ancient Rome was founded, by attracting fugitives and outlaws from the modern.
Richard Marshall interviews Roc Sandford.