And the countries called,
Seductive heroism,
And the young men came.
And their mothers sang
Songs of woe, Lieder von Leid.
And the young men served.
And the people wept,
Tears a universal tongue,
As the young men died.
Sep 6, 2020
Sep 6, 2020 at 3:11 AM UTC
Black lives don’t matter.
At least not anymore than
Anyone elses.
All life is sacred.
Life is holy whatever
Your faith or colour.
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 9:13 AM UTC
Even though they were smaller than me
They made me feel very afraid
As they roamed the playground together,
With the smell of over-boiled cabbage and nicotine
Clinging to their clothes and hair,
Their small, hard hands and ***** sharp finger nails
Grabbing at the lapels of your blazer.
They had white dinner tickets for free school meals.
Our tickets were blue and cost a shilling.
They sat, bunched together, in the middle of row four,
And if you were moved to sit beside them,
Your friends pointed at you and laughed,
Like when you had just had your haircut,
Or you wore glasses for the first time.
Their uniforms were ragged, hand-knitted jumpers
And wellingtons, even in the summer.
When you had sweets they would corner you in the playground,
Demanding their tribute share.
And you always handed over the best of your sweets, because,
Even though they were smaller than me,
They made me feel very afraid.
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 3:32 AM UTC
On your way to church,
See God dressed in beggar’s clothes.
Stop and say hello.
Aug 30, 2020
Aug 30, 2020 at 11:36 AM UTC
On your Sabbath day,
Sing and pray and praise your God,
Leave religion out.
Aug 16, 2020
Aug 16, 2020 at 3:44 AM UTC
Up on the old high road
That led to my grandmother’s house,
Uncertainly I rode my new bike,
Held up by my father, teaching me to fly.
Then suddenly he was beside me,
“I’m not holding you anymore,” he said.
“You’re flying on your own.”
A year later we drove,
Once more to my grandmother’s house
Where he, quietly and without fuss,
Lay down on her old iron bed-stead and died,
He couldn’t hold me up any more.
“I have to go to sleep now, son,” he said.
“You’re flying on your own.”
Aug 15, 2020
Aug 15, 2020 at 9:09 AM UTC
The stately tree falls
To the woodcutter’s axe
And all nature mourns.
From death comes new life.
A perfect shape emerges
From the plain, gnarled wood.
In his skilful hands
The carpenter produces
A thing of beauty.
But all things must pass.
Crushed wood re-born as paper.
Metamorphosis.
The woodcutter dies
And rests in the tree re-made.
Seeking forgiveness?
He enters the earth.
The soft forest floor opens
And bids him welcome.
An oak marks his place.
Its roots at one with his bones.
The slow turn of life.
And beneath the soil
His decomposing body
Gives the young tree life.
Aug 11, 2020
Aug 11, 2020 at 2:19 PM UTC
Jesus, Carpenter.
Time-served in his father’s shop
Left home to find work.
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 7:40 PM UTC
When I am an old man I shall not wear beige.
I shall wear faded denim and cowboy boots which are down at heel and need soled.
I shall spend all my money on guitar strings and magazines and beer,
And buy coffee for the old women wearing purple.
I shall still wear a golden earing, like some kind of ancient, gypsy minstrel,
And go out in port and starboard socks like Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
I shall sing the protest songs I learned as a teenager
That demand to know where all the flowers have gone.
And I shall argue in public with traffic wardens and slow check-out girls,
And swear loudly at religious zealots and politicians
To challenge the arrogance of their self-promoting dogma.
I shall turn up at music festivals with my guitar
And people will look and say, “I thought he was dead.”
And I will release a CD of new songs
That shall have on its cover a cautionary label which says:
**** Parental Guidance!
Just for now though, in my sombre middle age, I have to act responsibly
And not embarrass my friends and family.
I have to eat sensibly and not drink too much,
And pay my taxes and vote.
But later on, when I am old, my friends will know
That in my dotage I am just rebelling late in life
Against the strict, grey Presbyterianism of my youth.
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 9:44 AM UTC
After a long struggle with electronic devices,
The Hand-Written Letter has peacefully passed into obscurity.
From the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphics,
to the hastily scrawled note in pencil,
from parchment and quill to paper and ball-point pen,
The Hand-Written Letter led the way in written correspondence,
bringing together the writer and the reader
in a way that emails never could.
Let us remember how we chose the paper,
how we picked and filled a favourite pen
and then witnessed the wonderful marriage of paper and ink
as the blank page filled with living words,
until finally, in that last, intimate moment,
it is placed in an envelope and sealed with saliva,
and in that moment’s parting kiss
you send something of yourself.
Aug 7, 2020
Aug 7, 2020 at 5:16 AM UTC