Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
To dominate the conflux of the rivers,
the Minnesota with the Mississipi,
a place inhabited for ten thousand years,
Bdote in the local language,
Fort Snelling was built on the bluff above.
The confluence of the rivers was sacred
to the Dakota Sioux, who believed
that their first ancestors had come as spirits
from the stars, and had been made human
from the clay along the riverbanks,
with life breathed into them like a newborn’s cry.
The evangelist – spiritual aide-de-camp
to Old Glory’s Commanders-in-Chief,
and nostrum-monger of eternal life –
in white shirt, black shoes, socks, trousers, the Good Book
open in his hands, sits astride a donkey
near the Garden of Gethsemane
on Mount Olive. Below him on Temple Mount,
in noonday brightness, is the Dome of the Rock
and the Al-Aksa Mosque and, out of sight,
the Western Wall. He looks at the camera
as one who might say, ‘Behold! When the Jews
hold Jerusalem heaven will open.
Found among the effects in the bullet-pocked,
blood stained rooms of Bin Laden’s hideaway
in Abbottabad – named for Major Abbott
of the British Raj – was a journal
describing Osama’s time in the UK
as a young, ultimately disillusioned,
teenager. For some reason, unexplained,
with his hosts he visited Shakespeare’s birthplace
every Sunday. ‘Here’s a knocking indeed!…
How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!’
Also found: ‘Mr Bean’s Holiday’
dubbed in Pashtu;
I wrote the screenplays between 2001 and 2008. They are presented below in the order in which they were written. Each is set against the background of armed conflict.
I was inspired to learn how to write screenplays as a result of a number of conversations in New York in August 2001 with Annabel Honor-Lissi, a fellow creative, and digital tutorials with her which followed.
THE MEMORIAL
The Memorial is about redemption through kindness, compassion and love. Set in the immediate aftermath of the 1st World War, it is a love story that explores class,
‘The park is named for Captain George H. Tilly, a local son of a prominent family who was killed in action in the Philippines while serving in the Spanish-American War, and a monument to the war is prominent in the park.’ New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
From the park’s Memorial Hill one can see
Manhattan, and the World Trade Center’s
Twin Towers. Below, this Labor Day
early evening, the benches round Goose Pond
are filled with families – Sikh, Jamaican,
Hispanic.
For Doreen Levin
He was on duty the night Liverpool burned.
They watched the orange glow over in the east.
He remembered the convoy earlier that day
strung out along the horizon, waiting
for high tide. The Lance Jack, Scouser One,
told them where it was. One of the Taffies said,
‘My brother’s there too’, leaving things unspoken.
In the silence Saul wondered if Tilbury
was being done as well, the bombs drifting,
as usual,
HINDSIGHT
A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION
ON FIRST READING ‘THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO’
A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION
BIRTHDAY GIRL UNDER HOUSE ARREST