I also delayed because I have been editing my Crete novel, and yesterday said to M that I was tempted just to delete the whole damn thing (all versions, all notes, everything) because I thought it was dire. She said I should let her read it before I did anything that extreme. So I’ll push through the second edit. I doubt all my books (you’ll have figured that by now unless you haven’t realised that the title of this blog actually really means what it says).

The results of the English local elections intially acted on me like a brick wall - I could no longer see the sense in my poetry, my polemic, my songs, my novels, especially the current one (I always deceive myself into thinking it has no political message, until I start reading it again). I’m starting to shake off that feeling now.

Here’s what I think the Labour government needs to do.

This is not the time to change leader. Instead, it’s time for the entire cabinet to change the direction of this government, time for collective responsibility for all the errors that have been made since July 2024.

• Actually mean it when you said that government should be for country not party. We’ve seen no sign of this from the government to date, nor from any of the opposition parties. So do things that benefit country not party. Like these:

• Immediately update the electoral system to an effective one of Proportional Representation, preferably the Single Transferable Vote method. Give every vote a voice. And the fact that it finally, belatedly, brings an end to the two-party system is a good thing. Do it now. There is no reason not to, and any number of reasons for doing so.

• Stop with the anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation. The truth is that this approach had already started when Ed Miliband was leader. It’s unacceptable. It’s singing to a racist tune. Welcome immigrants. Emphasise their hugely positive cultural, economic and healthcare system contributions. Close down racism. Call out racism.

• Immediately establish closer ties with the European Union with an immediate return to Freedom Of Movement, with the aim of rejoining the EU as soon as possible. The data unequivocally and objectively proves that being outside the EU has deprived the UK of economic growth. No referendum needed, especially as the 2016 referendum was advisory and not binding.

• Stop selling arms to Israel. Stop supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Zionism is nothing but racism in a different cloak. Anti-Zionism is NOT anti-semitism.

• Stand up more powerfully to Trump. Rejoining the EU and the Single Market, setting up an European defence force, and establishing a powerful European block against the Far Right (especially with Hungary now under a moderate government) is the best way to counteract any US aggression.

• Tax the rich a lot more.

• Stop being inflexible and dogmatic.

There is no point me going on - those are the main changes to be made.

There is no point me stopping writing - that would be inflicting even more pain on myself.

But there is every point in me focusing on one creative endeavour at a time. The second edit of the Crete novel (which is political) has to be that focus.

For some reason or another (take your pick), spotify has removed this track from my catalogue on there. I have therefore now made it free to download on all my streaming platforms, and am also posting it to both my blogs. I am now working out how to get all my music off spotify.

Based on a poem I scribbled on 25th January 2026 after the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents, I managed to get the track out within less than 24 hours, beating even Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis that took 4 days from writing to release. 

Neil March of Trust The Doc, in Edition 112 of his monthly magazine, said “We were just about to sign off this edition of TTD when we received the latest track from Norwich’s alternative poet and artist Richard Pierce and had to include it. This Ice Age delivers an almost Cooper Clarke-ish attack on the horror that is Trump’s ICE fascists and their murderous discriminatory thuggery. The instrumental backdrop is almost warm although the sound effect has an iciness but it is Richard’s words that matter here and he uses metaphor cleverly to make his case. A must hear track.” I’m very grateful to him for that.

The lyrics:

this ice age kills
this ice age culls
nurses
poets
painters
singers
workers
mothers
fathers
sisters
brothers
daughters
sons
truth speakers
peace seekers
the needy
the poor
the hungry
the thirsty
the ill
the slow
the quick
the watchers
the waiters
the silent
the loud
the other
the weird
the normal
the helpless
the helpers
ice cuts
ice culls
ice erases
ice euthanises
ice eradicates
ice masks
ice blinds
ice grinds
ice grinds flowers to dust
ice kills democracy
where is sanctuary
where is warmth
nothing but ice
ice kills

• Finishing the first draft of my Crete novel.

• Trying to make (and making) lots of spoken word tracks.

• Trying to cope with death’s invasion of my friendship circle.

• Writing a lot of poetry but into three or four different journals/devices.

• Putting off editing the Crete novel because a) I think it’s awful (I think that about all my works, and b) because it needs to be left to ferment for a little while.

• Thinking and thinking and thinking about which book to write next. Aggie? Antarctica? Immortality Chronicles?

• Working out how to take my entire catalogue off Amazon (except for the one novel I have no control over).

• Working an intense day job.

• The ups and downs of relationships.

• Trying to make sense to my therapist and myself.

• Looking at the world, and despairing.

You can easily extend this list.

So the below is possibly what sums it up best.

Impossible

It would be easier to stop trying
To squeeze meaning from words, to
Just put away the pen, the keyboard,
The enquiring mind, and get more
Sleep, watch more brainless TV,
More AI slop, stop struggling against
The brainwashing, stop fighting the
Inevitable end of self, of love, of world.
Is there even a weight in words if
Nobody reads, nobody listens,
Nobody learns? And the only mantras
People learn by heart are the ones
Made from lies and deceptions and hate?
It would be easier just to drop everything
And drop from the face of the earth,
And forget the goodness and beauty.
It would be easier and gentler,
But it’s impossible.

R 03/03/2026 14:23 Norwich Library

They Have Always Murdered Poets

The oppressors have always murdered poets.
They fear the truth, and silence mouths so
No-one can hear it.

It is not murder limited to one country, one
Cause. It is universal murder. It started long 
Before Socrates was made to swallow his cup
Of hemlock,

Long before words were written and read.
Storytellers were always vulnerable for the
Universal truths they told which challenged
Authority and popular beliefs. Sagas and
Legends always told of good trumping
Evil.

This is why evil regimes tear the tongues
From poets and philosophers, from dreamers
And visionaries, from realists and activists,
To try to decapitate resistance.

R 11/01/2026 22:10 Norwich

I’m not happy to have had to write such a poem, but proud to have turned a poem written on Sunday into a Spoken Word piece with instrumentation by Wednesday.

we lend the land to the humans
in return they abuse it and us
without thanks or thought
believe their artificial divisions
make their pathetic parcels sovereign
when they’re all part of one world
our world

they will not survive
though we are not wrathful
they will destroy themselves
with their lies and games
and self-deceptions
they have already started

they forget that their millennia
are a fraction of one of our
moments

R 09/01/26 17:42 Norwich

Betrayals have a way of succeeding at first,
Until the betrayed have the courage to stand
Together against the betrayer. There is always a
Risk when weapons are involved, and the men
With the deadliest weapons are those with the
Most unpredictable and damaged minds.

It’s time to stop speaking figuratively.

When we marched against nuclear weapons, we
Already and always knew there was not just 
One enemy, and that the West was as culpable
As the East, as Asia, as all the war mongers
Who learned nothing from World War II except to
Postpone and hide their real ambitions. All
Of them are imperialist dictators and chancers.
And no-one listened, and our protests continued
Ignored and diminished and starved of the
Oxygen of public awareness. So the world slept.

Where does kindness go when tyrants breathe?

And now the US threatens Europe,
And Russia threatens Europe,
And China threatens Taiwan,
And Israel threatens everyone,
And the US threatens South America,
And Europe threatens itself.

We can no longer know if the jets above are friends or foe.

The world order remains as it always was.
The rich against the poor. It’s never changed.
We try to resist.

R 06/01/2026 16:37 Norwich

For all the darkness in me,
I am a bright light, and that
Negative impulse a minority
Of me which I have taught myself
To laugh at and banish
Most of the time.

When it threatens to grow, I hold
My breath, and find that safe place
Inside me, the brightness which has
Always been there, but struggled to
Flare.

It is when the darkness outside is
At its greatest, when it calls me to protest,
That I am at my clearest, my lightest,
My most brilliant and dazzling,
Despite my tears at the
Man-made ills of the world.

I can and do smile when I remember
My ability to, and when I make time
To string together words that mean
Something to someone, to everyone.

This path was never going to be simple,
Nor straight, nor easy, and I will walk
It for as long and far as I can, as I
Seek to banish the darkness forever
Into the night where it belongs.

R 31/12/2025 18:09 Norwich

The last six weeks have been hard work, on all fronts. In my day job, the last quarter of the calendar year is very busy, and November and December (especially December) even more so. In my other lives (the price of doing so many different things, most of which are self-inflicted/self-chosen activities/creativities) I’ve been struggling to find minutes and hours to fit in what I want to do - and not succeeding. And I know creativity fluctuates, but I don’t like it to.

And now I feel the increasing weight of a world where the words I want to share at this time of the year (and every day, in truth) are, out of other people’s mouths, nothing but hypocrisy, because evil doesn’t change its tune at any celebratory point in any year. It’s something I discussed with my therapist yesterday, because I had to talk out of myself that self-critical judgement that I’m naive for believing in the goodness of humanity. As always, the conversation helped me find positives in my existence and thoughts - and it’s not naive to believe in goodness in all, and to want peace for all. It is those who usurp peace and goodness and truth who are those at fault. And, for me, it’s never a question of what faith you have or do not have, but it’s all about kindness and tolerance.

So I’m glad I found this message on Norwich City Hall yesterday, because it is what I want to say. And although I won’t be around for the next four days, here or anywhere in the virtual (yet real) world, I’m never going to give up trying to spread the light.

It is entirely appropriate that a poem I wrote in 2016 after the advisory referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU should still be relevant now, in a week where a supposedly Labour government decides to ape the Far Right and proposes immigration legislation which will make the UK one of the most unfriendly and isolated countries in the world.

What kind of society is the UK becoming? What kind of society has it already become? And it’s not just a question I have to ask of the UK, but of the world in general. Genocide, tyranny, dictatorship, the rule of supreme wealth over the common good, post-truth (whatever that might or might not be), disrespect – and any other vices and deceits you might care to add to that list – appear to be the prevalent sentiments right now. Hate and evil, in fact.

Very apposite then, that that poem I wrote then, in the bleak post-referendum landscape, should now find a new lease of life with the wonderful music created specially for it by The Big Grey Man, music which gives the words even greater impact, and with some closing lyrics by TBGM which lend the track additional optimism and determination.

Oddly enough, I had a long phone call with an acquaintance yesterday who asked me if it was better to say nothing in the face of the hate and evil which stalk the world right now, or better to say something ony to be ignored and to get the feeling of not changing anything. I told her I can’t just stop saying what I feel needs to be said. And if no-one chooses to listen, then so be it. At least, although frustrated and angry, I know I’ve said what I want to say. And this is what I want to say (and, yes, the title is a link to the song):

I REJECT

I reject that autumn starts on the first of September.
I reject that organised religion is faith.
I reject that faith engenders violence.
I reject that one faith is greater than another.
I reject that faith and science are mutually exclusive.
I reject that one country is greater than another.
I reject that humans are basically bad.
I reject that war is inevitable.
I reject that peace is impossible.
I reject that those who seek peace are appeasers.
I reject that those who oppose war are cowards.
I reject that austerity is a sound economic principle.
I reject that the poor should pay for the crimes of the rich.
I reject that immigration should be limited.
I reject that there’s a difference between races.
I reject that there’s any difference between individuals.
I reject that Brexit is permanent.
I reject that the sword is mightier than the pen.
I reject that love is nothing more than chemistry.
I reject hate.
I reject evil.

No lo creo.
Ten valor.
No pasarán.
Ven conmigo.
Estamos unidos.
No nos silenciarán.

I don’t think so.
Have courage.
They shall not pass.
Come with me.
We are united.
They will not silence us.

I reject evil.
I reject hate.

I believe that it’s not too late.

I reject evil.
I reject hate.

And I declare that it’s not too late.

I abhor all violence. From anybody to anybody. In my world view, we are all equal, and no-one has the right to inflict injury or death on anyone else. No matter.

However, this is not the time to allow the normalisation of beliefs which run contrary to equality.

This is not the time to normalise a dead man’s views that spread vileness, which endorsed racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and the violent oppression of The Other.

Unfortunately, this is what is happening. And there’s a problem with that.

These are beliefs which Trump in the US and Farage in the UK and Netanyahu in Israel, amonsgt others, subscribe to wholeheartedly, beliefs which they spread with their webs of lies, webs into which the less well-informed fall all too readily.

These are beliefs which encourage political violence rather than trying to put a stop to it.

These are beliefs which make genocides acceptable and possible, genocides so many governments are choosing to ignore.

The bottom line is that if we don’t stand up to such beliefs and call them out for the racism and hate speech they are, then we’re lost.

Violence breeds violence.

Hate breeds hate.

Contempt breeds contempt.

And I can’t condone any of this.

When I voted Labour in July 2024, I never thought, maybe naively, that I would be voting into ower a government which would turn out to be as authritarin (perhaps even more so) than the previous Tory government, nor a governnment which would far too easily grow into a racist anti-immigrant government which has adopted, far too easily and readily, the ant-foreigner rhetoric that the Far Right is so fond of using.

When we see mainly peaceful protest organisations proscribed because of telling the truth, and, because, basically, security at an air force base was less than tight, while we see Far Right organisations spreading lies and racist vitriol being applauded and their behaviour aped, by a party which was supposedly all about protecting people, and homes, and families, then something is seriously wrong.

When we see a government indiscriminately withdrawing benefits from the needy, when we hear a Prime Minister using phrases such as “island of strangers,” and a Home Secretary questioning the interpretation of international law as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, then something is very wrong indeed.

When we see a government declining to such a point that it feels it can only win back votes by adopting Far-Right-lite policies, when it begins to disregard the basic human rights of citizens and asylum seekers alike, when it fails to counter Far Right propaganda with any kind of honest pushback, when it fails to point out that the roots of the UK’s current economic decay is due to leaving the European Union, we have to speak out. We have to say - stop, this is wrong; you’re meant to be on the side of the people, you’re meant to protect the vulnerable, the weak, the sick.

When a Prime Miniser pledges in his first day in office to do politics in a different way, with integrity, and for the good of all, and then proceeds to throw that all over, and to join the racist chorus, when his entire government follows timid political expediency which actually makes far greater the possibility of a Far Right government in four years’ time, then there is a disconnect. And it’s not one of an old man saying “things were different in my day,” but a middle-aged man saying “stop doing wrong by all the people your party was set up to protect.”

When Labour came into power, I thought that all my previous anti-government polemic would become obsolete. The contrary has come to pass. When Labour came into power, I thought we would move positively and quickly towards a better society, towards a fairer voting system, towards a fairer system of taxation (where the rich get taxed significantly on all their income). The contrary has come to pass.

The first year of this government has been characterised by poor decisions based on naivety at best and right-wing calculation at worst. It’s simply not good enough, not good enough to applaud nationalistic flag-waving, racism masquerading as patriotism, police state pretending to be for the protection of the silent majority.

I despair of where we are right now, and the song below appears to be as true now as when I released it in August 2024.

The Truth

This is the truth. There 
Can be no argument.
Anti-Zionism is not
Anti-semitism.
The facts are not
Arguable. 83 percent
Civilian casualty rate
In Gaza. This is not
Proportionality in
Bilateral inhumanity.
Anti-fascism is not
The same as fascism.
This is the truth. This 
Is fact.

R 21.08.2025 23:26 Norwich

I read the above poem to a dear Jewish friend of mine in a video call yesterday, and that friend strongly approved of the poem. Which was a relief, because I would hate to be misinterpreted.

This one I’ve not read to anyone because I’ve only just written it. But I know it to be accurate from my own experience.

The Racist

You say everyone’s equal.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You say colour doesn’t matter.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You say people must be safe.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You say you have foreign friends.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You take holidays abroad.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You don’t like foreign food.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You only speak English.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You won’t do some jobs.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You’re a benefits fraud.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You hate paying tax.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You wave a red and white flag.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You’re red in the face.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You say you’re Christian.
You’re anti-immigrant.
You say you’re not racist.
Actually, you are racist.
You’re anti-immigrant.

R 23/08/2025 12:07 Norwich

Since I got back from holiday too many weeks ago, and was disappointed to only have written just over 10k words of fiction in the two weeks we were away, I’ve really got my head down with the new novel, which now sits at just over 35k words, and at that point where I fear what I call the soggy middle, and I know I need to press on and avoid that damn soggy middle, and make sure every word means something and pushes the narrative forward.

And in amongst all that, I feel the pull and the drag of writing something which makes a timely statement about what exactly is happening in the illegal war Russia is waging on Ukraine, and the fool Trump is making of himself, and Putin is making of Trump, and the killing in Gaza, the genocide, the breaches of international law in the West Bank, and in parts of the US, the vanishing of people by ICE, the rightward lurch of the Labour Party in the UK, but I need to stay on track with this fiction, this Plato-like dialogue between two people on the writing process, the way in which writers like me might try to put together books that reflect the human condition, and still find some hope in what we’re living through.

In the meantime, the seasons begin to change, although you’d not guess it from these invented measures of heatwaves, nor from the fact (which is argued against by the same people who would make continuous war) that climate change does exist, that what we’re seeing is a direct result not just of industries and corporations and billionaires ignoring nature, but also of all the shit pumped into the air by these wars, these unjustified wars, these phallus-comparing wars waged almost exclusively by elderly men who should be in front of international courts of law and in prison.

What batters my psyche is that whatever I might choose to write, be that fiction that reflects the times in which it’s written, or poetry which strives to go for the jugular, I know, I am painfully aware that it’s not going to cut through, that I might have a few people nodding sagely or enthusiastically in agreement, but that it won’t make any difference at all.

This is the same discussion point my two main characters in this latest novel have arrived at right now, with one of them saying writers of fiction don’t have a duty to explicitly and consciously to make political points, and the other, who’s really a reader more than a writer, saying that’s exactly the duty writers do have. I know which side of the fence I sit on here. It’s just not so easy to do it.

But here's an interview the wonderful poet Ren Powell, a dear friend of mine, asked me to do earlier this year. You may learn a few things about me. And her.

It was the parents in Germany who attached the
Advisory to me, scared of their little darlings
Picking up the wrong lessons from the 
Englishman with earrings and hardly any
Hair, and sympathy for the left. Those same
Little darlings were openly racist in classes,
Needed telling to stop being so blinkered,
To have some respect and start considering 
All people and music equal. World War Two
Still lurked in the background in the 1980s,
The air rich again with the scent of young 
Brownshirts who didn't know what they were
Talking about, old women who shouted at
Me and mine that we should go back to
Russia, that Hitler would have made us a 
Head shorter, that the white supremacy still
Existed. That was an awakening which made
Me what I am now, and still the times have
Not changed, and Europe is on the brink.
Again.

R 03/06/2025 Norwich Library 14:19

I stopped caring about writing for a couple of days, in truth, because it seemed (and still does) that, regardless of who writes words of common sense and caring, they’re not listened to. This is not a gripe about my personal reach. It’s a gripe about people who don’t care about other people, people who hate other people.

But then I decided to try something else in my head (and I managed to articulate this properly in my therapy session last week after I’d started doing it). I’ll try to exercise free will over those things I can control. So I’ll no longer write a poem a day because I think I have to. I’ll no longer do two sessions of Greek learning a day because I think I have to.

I’ll just do what I feel like doing. Make a conscious choice. Like getting more boxes of books out of the shed where they’ve been sitting since we moved here four years ago, and discover some old treasures. Like lying on the bed and reading instead of doing doing doing. Like relishing doing the washing up. Like weeding for an hour although I hate it, but because I want to do it because M’s busy off somewhere helping someone else, and I want to do something nice for her. And while I was weeding at the front of the house, I met Heather and Trevor who’ve lived round here forever and who were lovely, and whom I’d never met before.

And, yes, I’ve been writing lots - just not showing it to anyone or sharing it on my socials, except for Island Of Strangers last week, I think. That’s what I meant with scribbling into the void. And at the same time, I am truly scrabbling for meaning in the words that do hit the page. And, interestingly, most of what I’ve written has been long-hand with a pen into a small journal I decided to start carrying round with me.

Then, today, finally, after almost a month away from even thinking about fiction prose, I spent an hour writing a new novel, mainly dialogue, which is really what I like writing best. Two protagonists finding out about each other, playing word games, being cagey and shy. I liked that.

Island Of Strangers

We’re already there.
Where no-one leaves their doors unlocked,
Where suspicion is the prime emotion,
Where the sick are a burden,
Where the poor are third class,
Where trans people are legislated against,
Where foreigners are scum,
Where race crime is in fashion again,
Where anyone different is bad,
Where intolerance is encouraged,
Where Europe is the enemy,
Where racists are true friends,
Where no-one is allowed to trust another,
Where the only respected minority is fascist,
Where no promises are kept,
Where love is a foreign word,
Where empathy is discouraged,
Where truth is a dirty word,
Where everyone hates each other,
Where political expediency trumps statesmanship,
Where culture is broken,
Where there's no future.

R 13/05/2025 00:07 Norwich

Still distracted.

Writing a poem a day feels bitty, fragmented. I want to sit in front of a blank screen and see the pages fill up with new words, plots I can’t influence, things that just come out of nowhere and hit me.

Still distracted.

I want to write more polemic, but longer than poetry. I want to make more music.

There are 30 pages of hand-written material nestling in a journal I took to Crete with me last summer, still waiting to be transcribed. I can fit the frgaments together more easily on a screen.

My mind wanders to the possibility of writing a play. Then on to the possibility of writing a musical. Focus, I tell myself.

Still distracted.

The irony of the noise distraction is that I like loud music. Constantly. Its catharsis. Its politics. Its heart and its heartbeat. The world is missing a central heartbeat. It’s missing a heart.

Still distracted. Turn that energy into doing. Sew all the fragments into one piece, a tapestry. That’s what I need to do.

Same Old

The grey faces have it all;
Anger, resentment, despair,
That tiredness of spirit which
Comes with daily strife and
No change nor happiness in
Sight, an ever-shrinking income
When other seem so much better
Off. This sentiment is mirrored
By mournful politicians with no
Obviously obvious new ideas,
Stiff suits plying the same groove
With no apparent attempt to
Think outside the norm, risk
Averse in the extreme, when what
Is needed is dramatic and quick
Extraordinary change for the
Common good.

R 02/05/2025 19:48 Norwich