Category: society

Someone other takes charge of our boat

The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope
With life, with death,with many shades between
When we despair and  can’t imagine hope

When the sailor takes us in his boat
When he rows us on a  night-blank sea
The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope

The world  seems  made to hurt, and then frustrate
The mind confuses   dreams , reality
When we despair and  dare not even hope

 Love is built  as we restrain our hate
Sailing well   a new country we see
The kindness of  our friends helps us  to  cope

Persistence in the virtues   gives us scope
Start again, the angel said to me
When I despaired and  lost my  threads of hope

In our mind love’s buried and unseen
Yet we can raise the dead with energy
The kindness of  our  frriends helps us cope
When we are lost and  mapless is our hope.

Virtue rendered void

Envy poison, friend of vicious hate
We know Cain for he still lives within
Society is built on hellish states

If not so, how can we lay love waste
When time is short, why cut it down with sin?
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate

Do not  hide it, saying  this is “fate”
Through brilliant Sylvia,Ted  asked spirits in
Marriage too is built on awful states

Only with her death, did he relate
One had to go to let the other win
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate

We suffer when we  think  that we need fame
All paper one day ends up in a bin
Society  too is built on loveless states

Comparison and judgment are  no game
Virtue rendered void, our hearts are lame
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate
Can society be built on other states?

 

Words benign

The gap between experience and words-
Should any person be reduced to signs?
A hint, a sigh, a flight, a  little bird

Who ought express  in lines what has  occurred ?
            Does the  bloodied heart  weep words benign-
The gap between experience and words

A line distinct, a line that is too blurred
What impact can this have on a design?
Which  hint,  which sight,  which  flight, will kill the bird?

The sentence  well constructed has its flair
Yet  to the  void   much feeling   is consigned
That gulf between experience and words

Who tore  apart the meaning  we  hoped shared?
So now to nothingness we are resigned
No hint, no sigh,  no flight, no  little bird

With   whose filters  may  we be refined?
Who shelters souls that others have declined?
The gap between experience and words-
A hint, a sigh, a flight, the   shining bird

 

 

Grace may come as small as  grains of sand

Material wealth can come in many ways
Inheritance, good luck, good work and pay
But with  the spirit, will power cannot win
Only those who’re humble,admit sin

Pain and grief , companions  of our life
Married to the losses as a wife
Grace may come as small as  grains of sand
Or like the wren that hovers near our hands

In imagination  breathe  as then
Slow, protective, patient and human
See in your mind’s eye the perfect wood
The trees  sing out as sun  warms sap, their blood

We can  research the wealth in figures, charts
Envy  not  the rich who have no heart

 

 

Throw your money into a black hole

The sky is yellow ochre tinged with grey
The sun is gone and we felt stark dismay
We can’t meet friends in person any more
Only shout as we stand by the door

I think the source of Covid  is just cash
Money laundered less, the notes unwashed
The coins are black as coal in devil’s  claws
Don’t leave  the tip that kills , nor money gnaw

I used to suck a shilling while I worked
I  tapped my  fingers  where it would not hurt
But now the sight of pounds makes   me feel sick
Never use old notes nor lovers lick 

Throw your money into a black hole
You may starve but this will save your soul

I’ve got migraine in my heart

I’ve got migraine in my heart
Spasms of grief  constrain the flow
The poor go down and the rich depart

I just looked at my shopping cart
The tower blocks lean, the street lights glow
I’ve got migraine in my heart

I’ve got eggs and milk and tarts
The poor can’t sleep  and their children snore
The poor go down and the rich depart

The teachers wish their work  could start
The benefits  system  overflows
I  felt pandemonium in my heart

In the sky  are  UFO’s
Where they go to I  may know
I’ve got migraine in my heart
The poor downtrodden, oh, damn  you Marx

 

They could not wear bikinis on hot sands

In the Jewish ghettos and Death Camps
Did Jews complain they  had no holidays?
They could not wear bikinis on  hot sands
Nor did they ask for somewhere they could pray

We can’t go to Spain  nor Singapore
We must stay  near home,oh  such dismay
I ache so for the poor in tower  blocks
Where violence and harsh words  erupt each day

We can get our food if we have friends
We can read  or write or even pray
Why  complain, the poor  bear heavier loads
Will we be sympathetic on such dreadful days

Our sadly narrow views  don’t serve us well
When other people  in  confinement dwell

Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn

Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?
You conceived me in a country waging war
So once for sure you did not sleep alone

I was too thin, the doctor was alarmed
My sin of prematurity was scored
Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?

Thank you for your milk, your breast, my home
In sadness wish you’d loved me or adored
Dad  once said  you did not sleep alone

I could not be an infant, was forlorn
While  you weaned me  in my rage I bawled
Oh,mother, why the judgement  of love scorned?

I frightened  you by   reading  minds  and bones
Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn
I’m glad you did not  always sleep alone

Why keep knocking  on the oven door?
Sylvia Plath  used gas ,that Nazi porn
Oh,mother  reason  can’t  prove I was born
But you helped  the human race   and kept some warm

 

 

 

Wet diamonds 

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Beware the delivery pass they sell
For I ,so foolish, for one fell
It says I can order every day
But  guess what folks, they make me pay
I  tried to do one this weekend
But in 6 days I have sinned
I bought 2 loaves just for the ghosts
Foetuses, and  heavenly hosts
Though  my babies never grew
I have  shawls both pink and blue
O mother, mother, come here now
I need your arm ,these thoughts hurt me
My  linen closets ready yet
I know my babies can’t come back
Now I’m old,I’d like to see
Their eyes  so gentle smile their plea
Tantrums, shrieks and other noise
I would welcome any voice
And one might look like my dear love
Why did God take them above? 
Mysterious are his ends and days
How can humans  know his ways?
The Lord may give, the Lord  may take
Blessed be his wounded Face
For God himself does suffer too
His eyes wet diamonds ,  polished dew

Few resist 

Why would wealthy Europe world wars fight
While Popes in cloth  of gold  writhed  as they sinned?
Few resist  the diamonds for the Light

Ambivalent love   split,  what sight  could  be found
When we spend too much time with our own kin
Missed experience shapes our eyes and minds

Those who cannot see, the wholly blind
Feel their deep emotion and may win
Love was offered  then returned as  Strikes

Yet in cultured Europe God has  died
We waged war with ardour, this was sin
Desire  overwhelms our eyes , oh  god, oh plight

Fell three Empires,states unplanned designed
Christians fought each other with new guns
So love was   never offered, simply feigned

In the eyes of infants light is dim
Wars are  made by  pschopaths at whim
Why would    proud, glad  Europe world wars fight?
Few resist   tempation , black the Light

Never write a letter full of spite

The consumer age is passing   with the dead
I tried to shop  again but Sainsburys have said
You can’t shop twice a week or twice a day
We will have to learn once more to play

Learn another language,read good books
Help another,  teach them how to cook
Go outside and  breathe the   purer air
Write a poem and then write one with flair

Walk around the street when it is clear
Drink from cans  filled up with   freezing beer
Take a photo of a tree you   like
Never write a letter full of spite

Surely we can gradually adapt
If we survive the madness and the traps

Bitterly sweet lockdown

drawing-genrleman
I confess to doing this funny little drawing ,Katherine

We  loved each other lately  life was sweet
Till lockdown ,isolation , iron walls
So we’ll have to speak .oh we’ll have to speak
From the opposite side of the street

We  hoped we’d live a while   before the grief
As we said on our long  video calls
We  loved each other, we loved to love each other
So our lives were  bitterly sweet

We longed to touch, to hug , to kiss at least
But unlike cats  we would not caterwaul
Now we’ll have to  feel , oh, we’ll have to kneel
On the opposite side of the street

We may be wrinkled with  bright yellow teeth
It has been known for  both of us to fall
We  love each other, yeah we love each other
For old age is not a defeat

We  loved   our neighbours, even those deceased
We’ve had  hard times but none that bit so deep
How can we   feel ,oha how can we feel
On the opposite side of the street?

I wanted you beside me when we sleep
I’ve even bought us fifty five new sheets
We  love each other, yes, we love each other
So our life is succulent, sweet
But how can we   touch, how can we  keep in touch
From the opposite side of the street?

 

 

 

From the dust

Power and love, two ways that we connect
One is often hateful, one respects
The Other is a person , I and Thou
Two words, two worlds , which  love could well endow

Power has many guises, most deceive
Talking  big  but wanting to receive
Men of power who long for even  more
The Jaguar, the palace, the gold door

A select   few  took risks to save the cursed
The Jewish baby, Amsterdam, the fist
The parents on a train,  like cattle crammed
Death  was not the end their  love had planned

Hurtling into darkness, when all’s lost
A still small voice shall  whisper  from the dust
 

Ain’t no police

The geese no longer fly past at sundown
They’re eaten by the “immigrants”  folks say
Who also kill and murder every day
The English are so perfect  in my town

That man is not an alien though he’s brown
He was born in Bradford  near the mills
His parents worked there till it made them ill
And now he is a graduate with a gown

My ancestors came to fight and to invade
They killed the  men and made the women wives
What chance that some  few English might survive
Are they now on benefits or aid?

The nesting swans have killed or maimed the geese
In their natural world ain’t no police

God, at last

Human sacrifice had disappeared
Would God bring it back to  strike with fear
The hearts of children washed in Jesus’ blood
His heart so sacred died, does that sound good?

Why stress the Cross, the  crown of thorns, the fear
As if God is a sadist,  cold yet nuclear
Who  might wish to   propagate this myth?
In Eden  dwell to hear the snakes that hiss

Jesus, kind and brave,  had no cruel wish
To feed a crowd he conjured loaves and fish
He  walked on water,  perhaps he loved to tease
No Caesar he,  his stories were decrees. 

And in the night, he wept  but never cursed
God, at last, knew humans at their worst

Love keeps the rules

Reality itself is like a dream
Where people die at random. some unseen
People flout the rules while others scheme

In ancient times,what did an omen mean?
A God enraged,his people sinned,unclean
Reality itself seems like a dream

Social life and conversation ruined
My words fell backwards, into  trash were heaved
People flout the rules while others scheme

Still, we have the sun,oh glorious beams
And in  a coup d’etat remainers leave
Reality,a huge collective dream

United by the wish to help,  streets form new teams
Love is shown, regardless, I believe
Some people  like the rules while others scheme

As the world’s  own web  in silence weaves
Stay at  home , give aid to those who grieve
Reality ,a universal dream
Love keeps  the rules, but death’s  still on the scene

 

 

God  is murdered daily, we perceive

How precious is the life that we will lose
The joy of senses open  like new leaves
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

Our boundary, our skin  protects, is bruised
By those who  claim to love but soon deceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

The mind  and body open  for new views
Are vulnerable, yet glad, as they receive
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

And Jesus came to Earth, a holy Jew
God  is murdered daily, we perceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

We are   torn apart, love, hate ,confused
Yet every  moment, God   is re-conceived
In  holy sun, in air,  in gratitude

First we love  our neighbour , then believe
The web of  holy actions, who can weave?
How precious is the life that we will lose
The  holy sun, the air, its magnitude

I eat cartoons for breakfast with a knife

I  lack the skill of mimicking   a cat
Mimesis  makes me copy  acrobats
I cannot do the crossword in the Times
If I’m free, I marry many  rhymes

A cartoon left me cold,I needed words
I preferred  to talk except to  birds
But now I reach the higher slopes of life
I eat cartoons for breakfast with a knife

In mathematics we use little signs
The science of pattern  circles all my lines
We learn to write  what others knew by craft,
The hand precedes the brain, the warp, the weft

The Scribes were groups  who wrote what others said
Scroll by scroll the Hebrew Bible’s read

The churchbells shuddered

When God came down , the rivers overflowed
Great trees were floating ,angled and exposed
The houses broke up like a loaf to crumbs
The hearts of humans  trembled  till they hummed

The winds deceived, the gusts unmeasured stung
The churchbells shuddered then untimely rang
The power was cut and all our screens were dark
Where were the rulers, where the saving Ark?

The women  giving birth were paralysed
The babies in the womb took ill and died
Their cradles rocked the world,  they swung so fast
And in a moment all of life had passed

In the void, God started  his new  world
Rich and strange,  the grit and then the  pearls

 

O wounded heart

O wounded heart,I cannot heal your pain
I shall bear it  as it still  remains
But why should I forgive  the one who broke
My tender  heart, my love and all I wrote/

The pride of men, the  anger soon provoked
The  cruel emails and  the  words he spoke
Why can’t we be kinder, more aware
Yet God himself was  killed,  who can compare?

The sadist drawn to those  who seem less strong
Will find  a dozen reasons  to do wrong
They  know their own pain not  the pain they cause
Some will kill  despising land and law

We  choose life despite these cruel  acts  
We ‘ll do well if we can live with tact

In a tilted glass

The kaleidescope is  shaken,something moves
Like the height of water in a tilted glass
The beast approaches shuffling off its groove

By poetry we cannot ever prove
We hope for Evocation  like the Mass
The kaleidescope is  shaken,something moves

We forget how culture used to soothe
 The  days of Lent  and then the Friday Fast
The beast approaches shuffling past its groove

Here is Christ, Messiah,King of Jews
Here arrive the endangered and the mad
Are we shaken, are we even moved?

God or Satan, who do you think we choose?
Two heads on one coin, we have  been  had?
The beast approaches shuffling  through the Louvre

The language is too violent,Precious Blood
Better play it softer  or we flood
The kaleidescope is  shaken, let’s be brave
The beast approaches shuffling from its cave

 

 

 

 

Reason by its nature is not Art

Reason by its nature has no heart
No soul,no body,faceless  but for eyes
Feelings are made outlaws. love departs

The schizoid self, the broken appetite
The failure to acknowledge our own lies
Reason by its nature has no heart

Where did we  go wrong, where did we part
From  compassion to the lowly, to  mad heights
Feelings are made outlaws. have no charts

Graphs and figures,lessons maladroit
The Nazis numbered Jews, turned off the lights
Reason by its nature has no heart

Who would do great evil and  make charts
Coded homes,  surveillance is our plight
Feelings are like outlaws.  they depart

Logicians made machines without insight
Do  robots  voices bring us sweet delight?
Reason by its nature has no heart
Feelings  gassed  like insects, love  departs

 

To heal the earth

Hellebore_2020-5We are not the ones to judge our worth
God’s    attention is  for this alone
We  love and find vocation  on the earth

Some are born with what feels like a  curse
Others have  been keen to cast sharp stones
We are not the best judge of our worth

Accidents of time, of place, of birth
Lack of vision,nowhere to call home
Disrupt the  virtue of our life  on  earth

Important  to love God and  enjoy mirth
To  laugh at our pretensions, grin and groan
We are not the best judge of our worth

There is no linear scale. we should not stress
Some may discern value  we don’t know
Acceptance is the aim of  life on earth

And when we’re stricken by a heavy blow
Inside our little hearts is one who knows
We are not the best judge of our worth
We must love and  work  to heal the earth

 

 

 

 

 

Faltering voice

The moment that they told me he was gone
I knew I never more would be at one.
The guilt  is bad, the shame is harder still
That I no longer am  what I would will

That I did not perceive the   your state of mind
That to your heart I seemed to have been blind
That I was not enough to keep you here
That life and death most grievous are  so near

Then  shamed by my emotions I withdrew
Into the prison cell  that no-one knew
My soul was  pierced , I could not own my grief
 Limp, submissive , blown away, a leaf.

Shame is deadly, unexposed to speech
With reddened face and   faltering voice I weep

Their own heart

Living with division in the self
Two parts that can’t be joined by any wealth
Worthlessness,  remote the place it starts
Can we heal,rejoin the broken parts?

Must we go back to  places where we failed
Or be unfree, a prisoner with no jail?
Who might knit the stitches that would join
The valued  half, the other part they scorned?

Ways to go down deep might lead to death
Earn the  anger,bait the holy wrath
The earth cracks wide, the precipice appears
Astride the split, there is  no use for tears

So easy to break up , to split ,to part
Who   will hold their self  in their own heart?