Knowledge they seek
Though none dare speak.
They hide behind magazines
And play out scenes in their head,
Doubt gnaws
Away and words go unread,
“But he said … And I know he wouldn’t lie
Don’t I?”
And behind closed doors
That which is concealed
Will be revealed.
The Atlantic has published a fascinating article by Anne Applebaum entitled “How Stalin Hid Ukraine’s Famine From The World”. In it Applebaum shows how the majority of western journalists in the Soviet Union denied that famine was present in Ukraine despite being well aware of its presence. The vast majority of the western press feared losing their journalistic accreditation to work in the Soviet Union so used terms such as “hunger”.
Applebaum relates the story of Lloyd George’s Private Secretary who managed to obtain permission to visit Ukraine (there was a ban on journalists visiting famine stricken areas) and blew the whistle on this largely man-made disaster, which flowed from forced collectivisation of agriculture and the state’s requisitioning of food from starving peasants. To their shame western journalists accused Jones (Lloyd George’s Private Secretary) of exaggerating the famine, despite them being well aware that he was not doing so.
You can read Applebaum’s article here, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/red-famine-anne-applebaum-ukraine-soviet-union/542610/..
Trees by Strong winds battered.
Leaves descend
And lie
Scattered,
And I
Think on Friendships end
The poet does capture
Beauty’s rapture
In verse.
How perverse
That in his desire to ignite
Delight
In another’s heart
With his art,
So much of his precious time
Is lost in rhyme.
The Sirens sang to Odysseus in Homer’s tale.
Lashed to the mast he did not fail
To resist their fatal call.
Should I listen to their song
I would fall
Eere long
And be lost among Hades ghostly throng.
My future may be as my past
For there is none to tie me to the mast.
The Sirens sing
And bring
A brief
Relief
From grief.
Yet the wise know
That their song signifies nought but woe.
“Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head”.
There was a young lady named Pru
Who was a Tory of the deepest blue.
She refused to sleep in a bed
Because it’s covers were red
So she slept in a bed of blue!
There was a young man from Greece
Who bought a house on a lease.
His estate agent, named Claire
Said “I swear
That with this purchase your wealth will increase!”.
She tired.
Once desired
Her idea
Inspired
Restless nights,
Delights
And fear.
But pleasures heights
Achieved
He grieved
For she
Who lay tired
And no more desired.
There was a young lady named Kate
Who lived on a country estate.
Her father, lord Moor
Was a terrible old bore
So Kate ran away with his mate!
K Morris - Poet 