My candle burns as brightly as of yore.
“Your what?” the punster gaily asks.
Oh, please do not be such a bore,
I’m really not up to linguistic tasks.

There is no verse that I adore
enough to don one of those casques,
and do not carelessly abhor
The adulation in which Millay basks

[See notes below]

That model of a ****** rifle
is one with which we need not trifle
the acronym is far from hard to see
representing, as it does, accuracy.

Indeed, extreme tasked ordnance
from Latin countries such as France
appreciate a form such as exacto:
regarding it as simply ipso facto.

Following a visit to the phlebotomist this morning, I penned the following:

She stuck a needle in my thumb
I gave a mighty yelp.
She said that she was satisfied.
I asked: “Do you need help
To take my blood that ancient way?”
To answer which she said
“It’s simply that you look so pale
I thought you might be dead.”

Blood tests are something I could do without
But they are alas a necessary evil
And though it’s really not a thing to shout about
They haven’t so far (in my case) proved lethal.

However it was with a deal of trepidation
That I presented myself at phlebotomy today.
The result did not match up to my anticipation;
The perfect vein was quickly pierced I’m glad to say.

It did, at least, give some sense of direction
To medical support for my ongoing treatment
Avoiding, to my great relief, any infection
Or disconcerting prospect of impeachment.

While the symptoms are improved by the procedure,
The condition, sad to say, is not remitted,
And the problem, even sadder, gets no easier,
While the health practitioners remain committed

To additional probing examination,
And are calling me for further tests next week,
Despite the blood flow’s vast immoderation
That required a lot of plugging of the leak.

When they put me into my final casket
And thus dispose my bones and body once for all
I can imagine someone there will ask it:
“We wonder why his body seems so awfully pale.”

Blood tests are awful
But they are necessary.
Why am I so pale?

I arouse myself from Morpheus’ embrace,
In panic,
and prowl the stark, bleak blackness
of my flat.
Is it that I cannot contemplate
with equanimity
the possibility
that, once returned to sleep,
I’ll not awake?

I have now reached the age
where concern with
the colour of my *****
and the colour and consistency
of my faeces
have become matters
of matutinal preoccupation.

The symbols of arriving springtime have come late this year
in north-west London.
The blossom on the apple tree outside my bedroom,
heralding the anticipation of renewal
and the promise of life to come
has been delayed by several weeks.
And the flowering is less profuse than ever.

I try to seek the metaphor;
the concatenation of my personal survival
conveyed by the tree’s own growth.
But what does the linkage signify?
Another year?  Another life?  Another death?
Or none of these?

And if I yearn for signs of immortality
then I am doomed to morbidity,
as the tree is programmed to portray
a slow, inexorable but unmistakable decline.

And still I know that morning light
will daily draw me to my bedroom window
and the forlorn desire to see some sign
some hope, some promise, some assurance
that there is no inevitability
of change,
save that it be change itself.
Instead of which I am presented with
a demoralising symbol of uncertain hopes.

Spring should be an optimistic season;
the blossom on the tree should herald
a renewal, not a death.
But this poor springtime growth has
merely served to reinforce
the fears and sadnesses of
Winter’s  tribulationary concerns.

ENVOI
Five days the blossom stayed
and then was gone.
Nor were concerns allayed,
but hopes were thus betrayed
and possibilities undone.

I do not celebrate this pagan feast,
But others do, I know,
And some may call it Chanukah,
Or worship Christmas snow.

But call it whatsoe’er you will;
Light candles, deck your tree,
Or merely give your heartfelt thanks,
Please read this homily.

You do not need a good excuse
To celebrate a feast
You only need to have your fun
Before you are deceased.

They tell me that
inserting a stent in an artery
these days is no different
than lancing a boil in my ***
when I was a kid.

It should reassure me,
but the use of a phrase
such as invasive surgery
fills me with such dread,
as does the hated “C” word
that rattles round involuntarily
in my head.

And even worse
is when they call it
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
or PCI for short
but not for long
before the dreaded doubts
once more invade my mind
in sinuous counterpoint
to that more disquieting
portent of invasion.

Knowing that I had but a short span
of time before
I would depart,
and cognisant of all that I had built
upon the trellis of my dreams.
I wondered how best to preserve
those unique sentiments
as my endowment to the world.
There seemed to be
no formula for one such as myself
to entertain the posthumous
yet valid sustentation of my life.

But then the gods,
or such as pass  for them
in my philosophy,
took pity on this sinner
and vowed to store his yet
unsatisfied  expressions
of Life’s truths
for all posterity.

They salted a rain cloud
with my spawning seed
that I might yet persist
in word and deed.
Then storms produced
a prophecy,
a bequest to my progeny
that when I am no more,
and worms have done their worst,
the nascent grains of my philosophy
shall still remain intact and undispersed.

And so these morbid lines
continue to enhance the pages
of this conduit;
to bore, excite, annoy, exasperate
and otherwise to plague their readership.
But have no fear:
take heart dear reader,
persist in honest faith
and reassurance that
the peregrinations of this verbal inning
is closer to its end
than its beginning.

There is a taste to violence,
a tang, a smell,
a strange delight
that thrills and yet disgusts
the fickle sense of worth,
the sweet austere caress
that fills and then combusts
to leave the hated spirit
stained in hell.

They **** us up, the kids we bear,
A Gordian knot cut through and through
But it’s a blame we have to share
A penalty that’s overdue.

And they’ll be ****** up in their turn
By kids who simply do not care;
Who half the time show no concern
And half are scrabbling in your hair.

The child is father of the man
So how on earth can we complain
When they indulge cruel Nature's plan
And put us through it all again?

[Therefore when you meet the unbelievers,
smite them at their necks.
Thus does Allah test you,
and, according to Qu’uran,
those that are slain in Allah’s way,
will never have their deeds forgotten.]

They called him Jihadi John.
It was not his name.
Mohammed Emwazi was how he was really known.
Born in Kuwait;
brought up in Britain.
How are such monsters made?
They have special classes
associated with the mosque.
How to slay
in the name of Allah.
The mosque does not encourage them,
but the mosque is a useful hub
for recruitment
and good camouflage
for activities denounced by
the majority of the congregation.

We really cannot blame
the parents,
we, who have spawned our own share
of mad dogs.
“He was always such a good boy”,
we hear them cry.
“Charlie’s such a good boy, a good boy”
runs the Dia Frampton lyrics
“so compliant, quiet as a stepping stone”.
“You’re such an easy target,”Dia says,
“without a rebel bone”.

[Do you hear what I’m saying?]

But this is in the West,
where tolerance is synonymous with weakness.
Pinpointed as terrorists
by the enforcers of public order,
(perhaps better defined as errorists)
so hesitant to deny these miscreants
their legal rights,
these sickening abominations
(undeserving of the name of Man)
are able to perpetrate their outrages
and continue to abuse the State
that has nourished them.
All in the name of
political correctness.

An equal tolerance
has never yet been granted
to one suspected of a similar
disregard for the traditions
and beliefs and loyalties
prized within their own
Islamic State.

We also have to ask ourselves:
would Russia tolerate this situation?
And furthermore
why is that immense country
so free, apparently, from Jihadism
when it has been responsible
for far more Muslim slaying
than any other Western nation?
Is it perhaps that very fact:
that absence of such toleration
has rendered it immune
from such attacks?

[Do you hear what I’m saying?]


So if you really want to take a hostage
and satisfy your primitive desire
to lop off a head,
the road to take is spread out there
before you.
You need to move to
freedom-loving nations of the West.
Pronounce your aims
in non-equivocating terms
and tie them very closely
to doctrinal belief.
No matter how outrageous
they may seem.

Indeed, the more absurdly
barbarous and primitive
the ideology that you spout,
the more your hosts
will backward bend
and shower upon you all the
benefits of a beloved friend.
Indeed, in bending backward
they are making a symbolic
gesture:
baring and presenting you
a throat.

[Now do you hear what I’m saying?]

I do not walk in measured tread,
I cannot spare the time;
And steady pace is better suited to the dead
Or projects more sublime.

I see them dressed in garb of green
As best befits the land
That harbours jihadist and others more obscene
And not their native sand.

They bear allegiance to no state
That may have sheltered them,
But spread instead their ugly message born of hate
And anxious to condemn.

It would be easy to cast blame
On perpetrators of
The outrage that most freshly has induced our shame
And dissipates our love.

But this would be to hide our guilt
At similar events
That other so-called freedom fighters have but built
And empty rage foments.

The question that we must address
Is why these souls should choose
Defection from their lives of love, and thus aggress?
Why do they not refuse?

What is there that holds them in thrall
And draws them to a place
That their forefathers chose to leave for freedom’s call?
Is it a search for grace?

Is it the hope of paradise
Should they in jihad die?
Seventy-two-virgins is perhaps the promise
On which they then rely?

They claim that Allah is their lord,
that Islam is their life.
They spurn the pen; relying solely on the sword.
The Quran is a knife

with which to cut the Gordian knot
that engirdles their guide.
The jihad route to paradise, the unbeliever’s lot.
But we are mystified.

What must we then on our side do      
that hold freedom dearly?
I just demand the freedom that I give to you
Car moi, je suis Charlie.

He may not have had all the answers
but he helped me address some good questions,
such as how you can locate a cat in the dark
when that feline itself is pitch black,
and has hidden itself in a cellar
otherwise termed a black hole.

But if I should chance to confront him,
I could ask for his personal view
of the answer to Hamlet’s sage
question of whether we are or we aren’t,
or which of the two we prefer.
And how can we learn to distinguish
a quasar from a hole in the head?

I might even ask what he thought of the cat
that Schrodinger placed in a casket
with poison and deadly material
that’s radioactively based.
Does he think it might leak radiation?
Does he think particles might escape?  
Or suspect it could simply explode?

And what might become of the cat?
Was it dead or alive, or just gone?
Let’s leave then with neither a whimper
nor even the biggest of bangs
It seems that it’s time to conclude this,
Now we’ve somehow returned to the cat.

They came one hour before the dawn,
Each to himself complete;
Fanatic’s face and stealthy pace
On canvas roughshod feet,
And each one knew what each must do,
His destiny to meet.
  
And some wore masks upon their heads
And on some heads were none;
And some held blades, and some grenades,
And in some hands a gun;
But, common to each one, upon
Their lips an orison.
  
It was not fear induced their prayer
(They were not so devout),
It was but pious callousness
That brought their prayer about;
The arrant beat of their conceit
Permitted of no doubt.
  
That they should seize, with perfect ease,
This symbol of the might
Of that great power in one short hour
Without the need to fight,
Naively and sufficient was
To fill them with delight.
  
But no one had considered that
There was a need to guard
The sanctuary of the house;
Tradition had assured
It would remain inviolate,
Thus were they ill-prepared.
  
And even less could they then guess
Their capture by default
In that bleak hour before the dawn
To dreams would call a halt,
Uncertain whether fear or smiles
Should greet this weird assault.

But never did they speak a word
  Or pause to give a thought
To those whose confined air they shared
And whose respect they sought
Yet unaware of how much fear
Their nervous rage had brought.

The constant weight of dreaded hate,
Much heavier than gold
Held in the throes of daily woes
Lacked shelter from the cold
And bitter blame that hid their shame
Scant comfort for that fold.
  
“If it were in our power alone,
You know we’d set you free,
But we must on that greater power
Bestow our loyalty.
Our faith demands the principle
Of reciprocity.
  
“And you must know our charity
Is running out of time,
And all we ask – a simple task –
That you admit your crime
Against our great and noble State.
Confession is sublime.”

But bit by bit and day by day
Anxiety increased.
The captives could not comprehend
Remaining unreleased.
And lacked the empathy that veiled
The hostile Middle East.

They disagreed between themselves
On what their captors sought.
There were a few who took the view
That they must lend support
To something that exemplified
How steadfastly they fought.

And for their part the captors too
Debated fervently.
Our fathers too believed as you
And lived lives decently
But we have learned by pain and strife
That these things cannot be.

But bit by bit their feelings changed
Quite subtly to and fro.
And what at first they would not face,
Became a need to know
The details of from whence they came
And where they hoped to go.

Is this the land your fathers loved
And toiled so hard to win?
Is this the freedom that they sought,
Those noble fellahin?
Do you not think these deeds disturb
The graves that they sleep in?

Do they not miss their families?
What holds them in such thrall?
Eternal and infinite bliss;
Is that the mighty pill?
Deliverance from worldly sin
And quick release from ill.

Our lives depend on your goodwill
And gaining your acclaim;
To guarantee survival must
Be our final aim.
Though it reflects so grievously
Our everlasting shame.

To find ourselves in bonding mode
Emotion'lly with those
Who seemed to pose the greatest threat
And had the most to lose
Seemed but the test of all the best
That we could then propose

Avoiding trauma and distress,
We need to change our course
As rivers often cannot help
Identify their source
We still believe we can relieve
The brutal use of force

Their cruelty from weakness sprang.
(They thought themselves humane:
Considerate to animals
And sparing children pain.)
But each one knew what each must do
Ere he saw home again.

“Justice for each is what we preach
Though it may terror breed;
That we may own what we have sown:
The produce of our seed.”
(The prejudice of ignorance
May yet fulfil their need.)

What irony their actions bear
As to achieve, they sought
Their violent needs with violent deeds,
And claimed for freedom fought,
Who were themselves to violence slaves.
How dear is freedom bought?
  
“The words we use indeed abuse,
But we have no regrets;
Corruption is the rotting fruit
That decadence begets,
And those who yet will of it eat
Deserve these epithets.”

Our motivation and our aims
Weigh much more heavily
Than simple arguments against
Abuse of family.
And we, with utmost trust, will still
Pursue it mightily.

To find relief in that belief
Their pleading did increase;
That that concern in turn might bring
Enlightenment and peace.
Yet still each knew what each must do
Before there came release.

The moral that this story bears
Will evermore abide . . .  
That death did not discriminate
One from the other side;  
When each one knew what each must do  
And each one did . . . and died.

I was a pimply-faced youngster,
fresh from the soot and grime
of London’s East End.
Removed unexpectedly
from the bomb and blast and buzz-bomb
of wartime London
and deposited precipitately
in the midst of South Wales
in the heart of rugby-playing country.
And I a soccer-playing kid from grubby back streets.
What could I know of scrums and back-passes and blindsides?

But I did my best, while ashamed to admit to my ignorance.
We put our heads together.
I thought it was a team consultation.
(They told me later it was a scrum.)
Someone shouted “heel”.
I thought he was being abusive
and the ball was so elusive,
and I turned too sharply,
and the upper part of my boot
detached itself from the lower.
(Our budget didn’t run to decent boots!)
And the team coach came over to me and said
“Didn’t you hear me say ‘heel’?”
And I, on the top of my form, replied:
“What shall it profit a man to win the whole game, but lose his sole?”

Some days I look in the mirror
and my father looks back at me.

So long as I can see his reflection,
sometimes sombre, sometimes sad,
occasionally smiling;
for that length of time, at least, I know
that he is not dead,
but lives on in me.

Thus do we survive.

Some day, perhaps, my son will look in a mirror
and I will look back at him.

The poet and the platonist
Were seated side by side
A carriage on the Circle Line
Was what they occupied,
While gazing at a map aloft.
It was the station guide

The train was running on its tracks
Running with all its speed
The carriage held but these two men
Great intellects indeed,
Deliberating mysteries
On which they disagreed.

Alongside Mr Gregory
Was seated Mr Syme
The former quite anarchic;
The latter, quite sublime,
For whom the whole discussion
Seemed but a waste of time.

The time has come the poet said
To speak of many things
Of God and Truth and Transcendence
And Saratoga Springs
And whether miracles exist
And archangelic wings

“O poet” said the Platonist
“Please look at what you’ve done!
You’ve ridiculed my arguments,
Where have my dogmas gone?”
“No need for such concern,” he said
“I’ve swallowed every one!”

I got in a stew
About you.
And not knowing what I should do,
My only way to treat the issues
Involved an entire box of tissues,
When I got in a stew
About you.

I got in a mess
I confess
When you revealed signs of distress.
Though a very small bit o’ me
Considered at least the epitome
Of how we two might coalesce
I confess.

I quite lost my head
When you said
You would never share my nuptial bed,
Though a very small part of my mind
Believed you were just being kind
Despite saying we’d never wed
As you said.

I got in a stew
About  you.
But I had to accept your adieu,
Though the shaking apart of me
Was breaking the heart of me,
And I got in a terrible stew
About you.

And I bellowed, and yelled, and I moaned
And I hollered, and cried, and I groaned
And intoned that it’s time I withdrew
From your view

I love the English springtime:
the lambs that gambol
in the sprouting grass,
and budding flowers
that spread their scent.
But oh . . . !

I hate the sneezes
and the running nose
and streaming eyes
of allergies
in English springtime.

I love our English summer
that warms but rarely
overheats my thirsting
body.  And I love
its cooling breezes.  
But oh . . . !

I hate those wasps
that buzz around
my honey-covered toast
at breakfast-time outdoors
in English summers.

I love the English autumn.
The russets and the golds
that tease my eye;
the orchards and their
apple scent.
But oh . . . !

I hate that mud
that ***** my walking boots
from off my feet
on country rambles
in English autumns.

And then the English winter
that never can decide
which of the seasons
it most likes to emulate.
But oh . . . !
Thank god there are no wasps!

If I may be allowed to be rhetorical
In matters spiritual or metaphorical,
I have a little parable to tell.

And if permitted to wax somewhat lyrical
I’d count it no less than a flaming miracle
If my words chanced to cast a magic spell.

You make the sunshine
When clouds fill the sky;
You make the flowers bloom
Where deserts are dry;
You expand my mind
With thoughts dear and clear;
And fill up my heart
Whenever you’re near.

And now if I may choose to be empirical
And build a dream that’s simply atmospherical,
To emphasise the points you’ve overheard.

They’re really not the least bit evangelical
Or even meant to drive someone hysterical,
As long as you’re both shaken up and stirred.

You light up my face
Whenever you smile;
To see it I’d walk
Full many a mile.
I’d go anywhere
For beauty so fair;
Honesty so true,
Fidelity rare.

So, summing up a treatise categorical,
And drawing to a close this tale historical
I’ll add one chorus to this final word.

In case for you it has been too intense, I call
Attention to much other verse nonsensical
And lyrics that are equally absurd.

My verses avoid
June rhyming with moon;
Search much as you will
You’ll not find a “spoon”.
And hard as you try
You simply won’t swoon
Over a songster
Whose style is to croon.

My task completed has not been incandescent
But is rather now revealed as evanescent.
And certainly it was not made of chrome.

So set aside these verses allegorical;
I hope you didn’t seek the Delphic oracle;
It’s time to pack up and to just go home.

by Siegfried Sassoon
1886-1967

In me past, present, future meet
To hold long-chiding conference.
My lusts usurp the present tense
And strangle Reason in his seat.
My love leaps through the future’s fence
To dance with dream-enfranchised feet.

In me the cave-man clasps the seer,
And garlanded Apollo goes
Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear.
In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
     Look in my heart, kind friends, and tremble,
     Since there your elements assemble.

For Johnny
John Pudney
1909-1977

Do not despair, for Johnny head in air.
He sleeps as sound as Johnny under ground.

Fetch out no shroud for Johnny in the cloud,
and keep your tears for him in after years.

Better by far for Johnny the bright star,
to keep your head and see his children feed.

Frost said
Home is the place where
When you go there
They have to take you in.
But what if there’s no place to go home to?
What if there’s nowhere that provokes
A sense of sight, or sound, or smell
Or taste or feeling
That evokes a memory?

You are cut adrift,
A piece of flotsam
Going where the current takes you.

The tide runs out,
The current ebbs and flows
Yet never ceases.
And you . . .
A piece of driftwood,
Lacking even the semblance of design
That might inspire a sculptural creation,
End in a vortex.

Is humanism Utopian?
You really have to think about it.
Or is it rather more dystopian?
No, then I think you’d never doubt it.
It seems that disbelief is best.

Humanism owes a debt
to thinkers of the Enlightenment,
although I haven’t paid it yet,
I think of it as my entitlement
to settle it at some behest.

I very early cleared my mind of Kant,
experiencing a vast relief,
approaching his chef d’oeuvres extant;
removing knowledge to allow belief;
the opposite of what he had expressed.

It occurred to me I ought to dig up
(or should I say instead ex-hume?)
what constitutes at least an egg-cup-
full of wisdom that I might consume
with non-platonic zest.

But wondering how on earth to do so
and thinking he might hold the key,
I fixed my sights on Jean Jacques Rousseau
and set sail for my destiny,
while trying not to feel depressed.

Voltaire’s voices loudly rang in deaf ears
as did the Persian Letters of Montesquieu
and failed to still my latent fears.
And thus I felt no need to rescue
Adam Smith (morality-obsessed).

To put Descartes before the Horse-
men of the Apocalypse
War, famine, pestilence and worse.
Who could guess it would eclipse
my thought, wherefore I was oppressed.

Or take the case of Denis Diderot
a friend of Hume and others seedier.
and one you might consider so
rash as to produce an encyclopedia
to get his knowledge off his chest.

That precious quality of truth
was Mary Ann’s# description of it.
It would not take a Sherlock sleuth
to simply thus produce a conviction of it:
an elementary request.

I cut my questing teeth on Russell.
His secular logic had a profound effect
and seemed to stir each red corpuscle
inhabiting this fervid non-sect-
arian but doubting breast.

I later turned my eye on Dawkins,
and his concern with my divine delusion.
A sceptic whose inspiring squawkings
validate my disillusion
and emphasise an ill-starred quest.

And so I felt the pointlessness of it.
Progress is the best end for a man to see
And belief simply produced less profit
for reality’s dispelling of my fantasy.
So, in the end, I acquiesced.

#Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, in *Adam Bede

It’s a pity, they said glumly,
that because of your neglect
we are obligated to remove it;
and although it’s been quite comely
and you may wish to reflect,
there is absolutely no way to improve it.

They gazed into my eyes and said
“Once it’s gone it will look bad
but there’s no way it can be corrected.
When something dies it must stay dead.
Best to remember what you had
than hope some day it might be resurrected.”

But though I took their words to heart,
I swore I’d not forget it,
although it left me in some disarray.
There are some things from which we cannot part
painlessly.  And I regret it;
and still deplore the day they took my Porsche  away.

Tears come from the heart
and my heart is as cold as ice.
So don’t ask me to cry,
for if I cry
it will not be for you as you are
but for you as you were;
when life was serene
and joy was unsullied,
and hearts were undemanding . . .
and tears will never bring that back.

Overwhelmed by your
enormous response,
with thudding heart
and sense that once
again I've been
awarded
a demonstration
that virtue brings
more than its own reward,
please take my hand
in gratitude
for so much passion stored
and shared.

That is not a poem, just a piece of prose that I've written in poetic form as an introduction to an announcement that the next issue of my quarterly online magazine New Nurturing Potential (publication date end of December) is being prepared.

The Autumn issue, published in September 2014, included a poem from Hello Poetry contributor Amy Bells, which she kindly allowed me to publish therein.  I intend to publish more Hello Poetry writers in the next issue and will in due course ask some of you for permission to include your work.  Maybe, just two or three.  

Meantime, if you wish to see the last issue (and archives!) you will find it at http://www.nurturingpotential.net/New-NP07.htm.  I'm happy to accept also any prose articles you would like to contribute.

Thank you again for your validation of my efforts.

Once upon a time I was a rebel.
It was not what I chose to call myself;
In my mind I was a fighter –
A fighter for freedom:
A counter-oppressor.
Rebels were the others.

I was nourished
on a code of justice;
a racial attribute
taken with my mother’s milk
and reinforced
by family teachings.

Or preachings.
And it did not take too long
before my back was turned
in self-disgust on
what I termed sermonising.
(They called me a rebel.)

It was not what I chose to call myself.

I was astonished to receive over 60 messages yesterday about poems I had recently posted.

But I was appalled at the possibility that some of the correspondents had not appreciated that many of these poems were not written by me, but were favourite poems that I wanted to share with others.  Most of them by authors long dead, but all within the public domain, and all attributed.

Reassuringly, however, many of the tributes were for my own verse and I simply wish people to know that where no attribution is given, the work is my own.  Otherwise the author's name will always be revealed.

Sorry I have not written this in verse :)