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Julian Dobson - For Tony Benn

Edited by JODY PORTER

For Tony Benn
Julian Dobson

It's not your pipe or plummy voice
nor your posh-boy turned working class
mutation that I celebrate.

Nor is it the way you glowed
with anti-nuclear fervour
when others bunkered down.

It is the way you drove
a straight line to the truth
wherever you could see it

and refused to step aside
from consequences
that left you stranded at the roadside:

and the more the shiny people sneered
at this curio from another age
the more it dawned on us you were a prophet.

 

Julian Dobson is a writer, editor and consultant specialising in regeneration and sustainable communities. He was the founding editor of New Start magazine in 1999 and was editorial director until October 2010.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter.
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