#2 Olive oil…

Series introduction

This new series of prose poems began at the end of March 2026. I hadn’t written a new poem for a couple of years at least and was beginning to imagine that ‘being a poet’ was something in my past. That’s OK. I am comfortable with moving on and there are poets aplenty out there. However, poetry has been one way of me making sense of the world, and it returned suddenly, with some surprise on my part, as if a tap had been turned on full. Having said that, after 68 years on this earth, it’s clear that the world often makes little sense (or at least not the human bit of it), so perhaps all I can do is to let my thoughts and feelings about what I see pour out. I do have an inkling that these pieces have something to do with ‘unpsychology’ (whatever that means) and that’s why I’m posting them here. All these prose poems appear in the original form in which they were written, though they’ve had some light editing along the way.

Context #2: Books…

This second piece was written on 31st March 2026.

‘One day everyone will have always been against this’ is the title of a book by Omar El Akkad, that I read, and was profoundly affected by, last year. See here for a longer treatment of the themes in the book: https://medium.com/unpsychologymag/the-ones-who-walk-away-344a84998ee1

The other context for this piece came from Yanis Varoufakis’ book: ‘Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance,’ his memoir/personal history and effects of fascism and colonialism across the region sometimes referred to as the Middle East, through the lives and activism of five women in his life. Find it HERE.

Prose poem #2:

Olive Oil…

Olive oiled, something avoidable slides into
view, cannot be unseen now, the gag reflex
triggered as red hands and fingers appear –
teasing a question. Meanwhile olive trees
are uprooted in the homelands, bulldozers
unearthing centuries of gnarled existence,
and identities are exploded — otherwise
eroded — the effect is the same in the long term.

I have a vision of gun-toting rebels staggering
under an unrelenting sun. Hunted, as ever,
by fascists, the refusal to accede is a passport
to some humid stinking cell, somewhere deep
in a Mediterranean labyrinth. Escape to a
mythical isle is temporarily possible, a place
where existential schooling takes place, and
the exiled are reunited with their sacred tree,
tasting sweet and salted fruit, a reminder of
what freedom is like when it slides across your
lips and tongue. Though, if you’ve come to this
place, you’ve permitted the world to implode
upon you. Everything is tied up here, in this
fertile heart, and now everything is burning.

The pretence of civilisation is generations
old, now almost never noticed. Even in the
face of mass murder the flip is automatic.
Good guy. Bad guy. Terrorist. Bang, bang,
you’re dead, and your children too. One day
everyone will have always been against this,*
but for now there’s nine circles of Hell
to pay, and all kinds of oil to dig for.

In the olive grove lives a family. You’d
know them from anywhere, you’ve seen
their faces. Weathered. Lined. Smiling.
Children with serious mischief in their
fingertips. Uncles with magic in theirs.
Kitchens catalyse alchemical transformation.
Olives. Tomatoes. Bread. Cheeses of all kinds.
The sound of goat-bells through the crags.
You’ve seen these places and the gods they
harbour, but you may have missed the insidious
stories; tales that sway this way and that.
Sea tales swept out by storms on the water.
Fierce songs carried in on the names of desert
winds. These stories always have death in them —
that’s the thing — and there’s no escaping the
downward draughts and spirals of destruction
when the drones are flying out to play.

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