I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth
One hand is on the ground,  my back is bent
Shivering fear, excitement, what’s  this birth?

I climbed , like Wittgenstein, a ladder’s worth
Then threw the ladder down   as my assent
I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth

Far away, so far, the time of mirth
For sometime a lover I was lent
Shivering fear, excitement, what’s  this birth?

I wonder can I walk ,this step the first
 Love may die and who shall then repent?
I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth

I see myself in black, the window’s bust
A man climbs out  uncut by accident
Shivering wonder, what allures  such birth?

I see in my mind’s eye  the incident
I  learn to balance  gravity with  sense
I desire  to stand on this new earth
Shivering, wonder, is it birth or curse?

I have spent  a hundred nights alone
No face to greet  me  when my dreams depart
No comfort  from the warmness of your arm

I  hear your key  but it’s a false alarm
A tear runs down  my face  and then more start
I have spent  a  thousand nights alone

A   river with no bridge  nor stepping stone
This water which keeps  lovers  late apart
No comfort  from the warmness of an arm

I see you are now dust, where are  your bones?
Where eyes to show  me  when you are contrite
I have spent  ten thousand nights alone

In the night you prayed for all who groan
You  smiled  when I  once spoke  of future life
What comfort could I  bring  to the Unknown?

I shall find a way to carry on
I will find the secrets  and the  light
I accept a million nights alone

 

When we were joined , who knew when we would part?
I am left with fragments of  a heart
 I have spent   so many  nights alone
Give me comfort  ,take me in  your arms

 

 

Oh,Mandy’s   here displaying   her white boots
She  sees disintegration,loss   and new despair
Douglas-Hume  starts  wincing on my roof

My eyes were open, dignified, aloof
Edward Heath, man, give me my  bus fare!
What time is right for  docketing the truth?

I knew there were strange numbers on the route
Take pi and e and i and  stop just there
Harold Wilson  tried in Downing Street

John Major  felt my brain , he was  astute
We see  straight through your eyes into you, bare.
When day was night, the Bennites spoke the truth

I bought the book, I ‘ll soon be destitute
Iraq has  made much wealth for Tony Blair
The bombs fell on  the children , ain’t they cute?

 

Graham Greene, the end of the affair
Netanyahu is leading but to where?
What time  is left, has Palestine  grown roots?
Asylum seekers die  for lack of roofs.

The sun as hot as tempers badly frayed
Makes little lamps  gleam on the holly leaves
While adults quarrel , children cannot play.

We are nervous who can  we believe?
No-one knows  for sure how we should live.
The sun’s as hot as tempers lost or frayed

We flinch   at seeing  leaders more war wage
Virtue and   its family  all deceased
The foetus is aborted, has no grave

On the other’s heart,  lies make their raids
The MP’s strut about like children peeved
The sun as hot as tempers badly frayed

Wisdom’s not genetic, not innate
We learn from those around us  only if
We   dwell within the dance of love  and hate

Why have  madmen triumphed , power seized?
Lives are  almost worthless  to these thieves
The sun as hot as tempests, storms of rage
We need to move, to wander, re-engage

Lost and found and lost and found again
Struggling up the mountains like a snail
So much suffering in the world of man

Must there be a meaning to our pain?
Empathise with Jonah in the whale!
Lost and found and lost and found again

Why do we go tense when we are lame?
Why feel like  murderous monsters out on bail?
So much suffering in the world humane

Do we get to know  with healing pain?
Stranded on  the pier in a great gale
Lost and found and lost and found again

If God is dead,  where can we make our claim?
Will we die well  when  our life has failed?
So much suffering in the world humane

 

Like  little boats we’re  tossed up  with no sails
Nor do we ever leave a vapour trail
Lost and found and lost and found again
Suffering   splashed  around  like   blood ,like paint

Hatred both anonymous and vile
Circles round the internet  and spreads
To cruel acts ,to forums full of bile

Without our knowledge it may hurt a child
Making  nightmares active in  small heads
Hatred both anonymous and vile

 

Could I do this, could I feel  driven wild
Then fear to kill but choose to hate instead
With evil acts , with comments full of bile?

What drives such rage,  makes any conscience yield?
Tormented so the mind is nearly dead
So spurts  out hatred in each sentence vile

Envy, malice, blackness, all can reel
What  monstrous film is playing in the head?
The  screen   enables evil, acid, real

Like Sodom and Gomorrah  were by God
We will be  cut down by our own words
Hatred,  perhaps disowned, is  here, is vile
Impels, propels the writing and its bile

 

 

 

The beginning of our wisdom must be doubt
The fool  who ” knows it all@  can never learn
They already know what life’s about

Yet we must not  go dither till distraught
Nor let our peace of mind be overturned
The beginning of our wisdom may be doubt

 

Wisdom must be suffered, can’t be bought
Like the fire that glows yet never burns
Some soon know what life is all about

 

I remember all the  battles  fought
The friends, the love, the kindness  which each earns
We  know what  wisdom lies in gentle doubt

Life is not controlled by human thought
Even the  most loving  may be  stern
If only we could know what life’s about

 

We  wish for love and will forever yearn
All is flux and no-one stays the same
The beginning of our wisdom must be doubt
Whose imagination’s got the space   and light?

 

The natural grace that animals possess
The harmony of movement and of sense
Few Britons  live well in their pallid flesh

The unseen side of skin when  blessed, caressed
Softening the nerves’ we strangle, tense
May bring  that natural grace  Adam possessed

The kindness of the arteries, who addressed
The circulating inner seas that rinse?
Few Britons  live well in their   sacred flesh

The hollow veins ,the pumping   heart , the blush
The expectation intimate, feared lost
The natural grace that animals possess

Vulnerable to others’ speech, ambushed.
Our unused appetites will turn  and twist
The civilised don’t  live well in their flesh

The old and  fragile curse,  they never kissed
We wait too long , articulate no wish
The natural grace that humans once possessed
 We ‘re ill disposed,we falter. long for death

 

Embraced  entire , your sacred smile held me
Until we  both were one deep in  our souls
As still as a white dove  held tenderly

 

For a little time so warm and free
As if your smile contained  me, made me whole
Embraced and loved , your sacred smile  touched me

As  we  cross together the  dark sea
I wish this sacred love could  always hold
As  gently as a dove ,as tenderly

And if I felt the  brilliant light  touch me
My eyes would weep,my tears would turn to gold
Embraced and loved ,  oh sacramental  tree

Would that humankind were truly free
That in the darkness, we could find our home
As dies  the  fragile Word on Calvary

We fear  the Tempest and we hear the Storm
The still small voice  will whisper , not perform
Embraced  entire , your  smile   encompassed me
As still as a white dove, as tenderly

I realised that the list of names rhymed  and had metre so I wrote this poem

 

Afghanistan, Iraq,Iran
Can “Democracy” be “forced” on them
Somalia,Yemen,Pakistan

The war on “others”,rights of Man
The  grief of  infants, war goes on
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Made in Britain,  torture ,gun
Electric, fearsome,profit, spin
Somalia,Libya,Pakistan

Europe, Jesus ,Vatican
Where does Revolution win?
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran

Egypt,Palestine,Jordan
Old Man River,death and Sin
Libya,Yemen,Pakistan

From five or six  or maybe ten
The Arts of War, the nuclear ban
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran
Somalia,Yemen,Pakistan

 

 

 

Perception clouded by the body’s pain
The mind dwells in our flesh   as does the heart
Life seems  dark and  all feels  loss not gain

The mind is not a ghost made by the brain
Why is flesh  not equal in its charm?
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

So illness and infection  cause us  strain
In the end from flesh we will depart
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Where are they who give love warm,unfeigned?
Absence of a lover brings alarm
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

Why do people near project disdain?
The illness and the fevers on me swarm
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Here is Satan with his  curving horns
He is not deterred by any thorn
Perception  stolen by the body’s pain
To Satan I  submit to  live unchained

 

Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Interspersed with clouds of other kinds
Above the Western reaches of the sky

The sun is setting ,troubling tender eyes
Sinking full of pride , impressed on minds
Clouds like herring bones line up to die

In  the West , stand hills where Satan cries
Asking for  submission  to his  binds
Below the Western reaches of the sky

Now all colours gone, the clouds must hide
As in anxious  dreams our teeth may grind
Clouds like herring bones will shiver, die

Across the fields I see a horse go by
His hooves make patterns, but to them he’s blind
He knows  now,  bewitching  is the sky

For the childhood vision we have pined
Dreams mixed with reality make eyes
Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Above the Western reaches  on they fly