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Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
My five syllables
Are followed by seven more.
Is this a haiku?
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
The older I get
the greater I’m astonished
at how young I am
Joseph Sinclair Apr 2022
I finally got
what I had for so long sought.
And did not want it.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
Do not resist change;
It is inevitable.
Resist being changed!
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Ice cap vanishes
Imperceptibly from view.
The rest is silence.
Joseph Sinclair Jul 2019
If you seek freedom
Search within your mind and clear
The shackles inside
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
It is so vexing
To achieve what you wanted
And not to know it.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
Contempt alas is
all too often the price paid
for being honest.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2019
Why’d my train of thought
Halt before it got away?
It ran off the rails.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Not to cause concern,
She moves stealthily through life.
But purr-posefully.
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2015
Back from hospital, with four post-procedural stents inserted, I penned:

Feel like a new man.
What is that I hear you say?
You preferred the old?
...
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
I cannot recall
any regrets consequent
on having said "Yes".
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
4’s one too many
3 can keep a secret if
2 of them are dead.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
Don't forget, unless
You control your attitude,
It will control you.
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2022
Though now far away
At the crossroad of your life
You draw ever near.
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2016
If he feared to do it,
he simply hid it.
He knew it must be done
and he did it.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2014
by John Gillespie McGee Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling
mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred
things you have not dreamed of - wheeled
and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovr'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                      John Gillespie Magee, Jr., September 3, 1941
This is intended to be included in the collection entitled Cultured Pearls which is to be devoted to poetry by poets other than myself that has had some special meaning for me.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Sometimes, surrendering  has nothing to do with weakness, and everything to do with strength.

We give up and walk away not because we want others to acknowledge our value, but because we finally appreciate our own worth.
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2015
How sad
that those
with half a mind
to compose
a poem,
do so.
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2015
[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?]
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2019
I am no penitent.

I sometime feel
that in a previous life
I may have been Titivulus,
the incredible Michael Ayrton’s
magnificent verbiage collector.


. . . the little devil.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2019
Don’t tell me . . .
nothing
lasts forever.
I reject it.
And so far,
so good.

Don’t ask me . . .
to escape
my situation
by moving
to another place.
I am already there.

Don’t deny me . . .
my right
to grieve
For it is
my weapon
against anger.

Don’t mock me . . .
and tell me
where
you think
I ought to go.
I am already there.
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2014
Clarence Darrow said
I don’t believe in god because
I don’t believe in Mother Goose.
Personally
I do believe in Mother Goose because
I’ve seen her on my dinner plate.
But I don’t believe in god.
So . . .
Go figure.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2019
There was a time
when words appeared
mysteriously, magically
magnificently
upon the previously blank page.

And then came
a period of total
dissatisfaction.

I would read them once . . .
and then again.
And suddenly
involuntarily
they would cease
to make sense.

I would say to myself
“I can do better”.
And then –
“Better than what?”
Joseph Sinclair May 2022
What I really deplore and deprecate in our society
is growing evidence of the spread of iconoclasm.
It is not enough apparently to seek to improve
our own condition.  We are made happiest
by our ability to destroy the reputation of others.

Personally, I will never seek to promote my happiness
by denying other people theirs.
So don’t tell me I should be satisfied with my lot.
Don’t preach to the converted.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2017
I look back to that period
of innocence
and deplore its brevity.

I recall when
we bathed ourselves
beneath the fountain of youth
and I believed
that our love would never die.

Was it a lie,
or just unspoken truth?

Every breath I took
brought me closer to you.
But it was not enough.
Why could I not understand
that all I lacked
was the recognition
that there was nothing
I needed
that I didn’t  already have?

It is a lifelong pattern.
A concern over what I might be missing
has always spoiled my
enjoyment
of what I already possess.

And while we continue
to blame others
for our own shortcomings,
we fail to recognise that
a voyage on
the vessel of forgiveness,
must begin with  forgiving oneself.

We have freedom of choice,
but apparently
we prefer to choose regret
rather than happiness.

All things are dust,
and to dust all things return
is a biblical pronouncement.
But while we may rail
against the losses and perils
of our existence
it is too easy to forget that
the bough may have broken,
but the tree still stands.
Joseph Sinclair Apr 2022
What a pity
there's no vaccine
for stupidity!
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2015
Sitting and waiting in the hospital reception area,
gave me time to think; and feeling even warier,
having just suffered the very first nosebleed of my life
and carrying within my wallet a warning card so rife
with the advice that its possessor is subject to the danger
(I know this may sound somewhat dog in manger)
inherent in an anticoagulant called rivaroxaban
and (if this doesn’t overstretch your attention span)
in the event of bruising or of bleeding
medical advice must be sought before proceeding
any further.  That is to say, at once, or even faster.
or, at least, with speed sufficient to avert disaster.

So, as I say, there sat I contemplating
(no, not my navel, but) the rather aggravating
progress of events that had brought me to this juncture,
that ended recently in a procedural puncture
preparatory to the insertion of a stent
the culmination of which they had to circumvent.
This gave me time, while waiting for the nurse
to minister to my problem, or at least rehearse
for my own delectation the best course
I would have to follow, not to make the situation worse.
At this point let me interrupt my own amorphous
rambling to pay due tribute to the hospital service.

This versifying for which I have developed a proclivity
means that I’m never at a loss these days for an activity
to occupy a boring period of gross inaction
replacing boredom with cerebral satisfaction.
So there I was, awaiting the arrival of the ****** nurse.
(Sorry, that sounds like an awful curse.)
In fact her blood-related treatment meant a lot to me
and was a simple adjective for her phlebotomy.
At that point my thoughts turned quite naturally
to the forthcoming repeat angiography,
and all the helpful comments by my  tender-hearted
friends, and the advice that they imparted.

I was quite astonished by the growing number
of people who this affliction did encumber
all of whom it seemed were anxious to ensure
that I was quite relaxed about what I had to endure.
Instead of being reassured I wondered
why the pessimists apparently were so outnumbered.
Indeed the views were so greatly one-sided
I found it strange there were no “undecided”.
Are they reluctant because of superstition?
Or is it that they wish to avoid an admission
that their empathic fear of ****** invasion
has led them to avoid arterial-related implantation?

But most of all I felt there should be scored
some “Nos” to balance the procedural record.
but they have been unbelievably silent,
whilst I’ve been growing every day more  violent.
Is it, dare I think, that it is just perhaps
because they may have suffered a relapse?
And then I had the most amazing thought of all,
and your objections I am anxious to forestall:
but I feel impelled to discuss the thought
that there’s a reason why they have not brought
their negativity to this post.  Is it quite beyond the pale
to suggest they’re no longer here to tell the tale?
Joseph Sinclair Nov 2016
I want to see her one more time;
One more time to say the things
I should have said before;
One more time to say I’m sorry
and how much I deplore
the ill-concealed behaviour
that she could not ignore.

I want to see her one more time;
One more time to gaze upon
that so beloved face;
One more time to visualise
that look of peace and grace
so unappreciated
while it was commonplace

If only I could see her one more time,
I’d be able to expiate my crime,
express  contrition
for that disgraceful act
unintentionally hurtful
and more a lack of tact.
If I were granted only one more time.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2014
by Joyce Grenfell

If I should go before the rest of you
Chuck not a flower nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I am gone, speak in a Sunday voice
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep, if you must, parting is hell
But life goes on - so sing as well.

                              Joyce Grenfell
This is intended to be included in the collection entitled Cultured Pearls which is to be devoted to poetry by poets other than myself that has had some special meaning for me.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2014
by Nanao Sakaki

If you have time to chatter
Read books

If you have time to read
Walk into mountain desert and ocean

If you have time to walk
Sing songs and dance

If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you lucky happy idiot.

                                            Nanao Sakaki
                                                          ­Japan

                                               From Can I Buy a Slice of Sky
                                               Edited by Grace Nichols
                                               Published by Hodder Childrens Books 1996
This is intended to be included in the collection entitled Cultured Pearls which is to be devoted to poetry by poets other than myself that has had some special meaning for me.
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2019
I like to have a brandy
it makes my heart grow fonder
and gets me feeling randy,
just like a hot transponder.

(A sort of parody of Dorothy Parker's “I love to have a martini”)
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
I love a poem.
One that rhymes.
But must admit that
there are times
When I go a bit too far
From the sublime to the bizarre.

I love a poem.
One that scans.
But must confess
That I may over-stress
in metric heat
the use of feet.

I love a poem
and feel better for
the use of
subtle metaphor.
But egoism’s
not the same as symbolism.

I love a poem
but cannot agree
that I delight
in imagery.
While rhythm I’m afraid
leaves me in the shade.
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2014
I love thee well;
I do not know
how else to tell
I love thee well.

Then fairer belle
he met, and so
I love thee?  Well,
I do not know.
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2019
Those friends who knew me years ago
before our ways diverged,
may recollect
how tempered was my intellect
though rivalry emerged
whenever cricket bat
or tennis racquet
were flourished in a hand
that nowadays
is more prone to encompass
a fine Chateaubriand.

Tennis alas is of the past
and there, I fear, must bide,
but other sports and pastimes
I can still perform with pride.

So please set out those winks
that I may tiddle.
Dust off those mallets,
***** and hoops,
I’m not one of your nincompoops
and need no Queen’s flamingo
to win without a taradiddle.
Or we could turn to bingo.

Then there are those of intellect
who might like bridge or chess,
though possibly in retrospect
It’s best to acquiesce.

Ludo, Trivial Pursuits
and even Snakes and Ladders
might yet provide a good excuse
to encourage my swaggers.

The choice alas is far too great
and though it seems too late,
yet, dice in hand,
I bid farewell
with hopes still unerased
and one finger upraised.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Please keep it at bay.
It creeps up on you.
Relentlessly, imperceptibly.
Until you feel trapped;
Held in a sticky
Gossamer web.

That’s for older folk, I think,
That’s for those who have passed
the point of no return.
It’s not for me.
I’m barely into my nineties.

I’m not ready for old age.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2020
I am unrepentant.

Give me a sin to struggle with
I am one of the unconverted
who happily abjures all piety
and seeks no arbitrary grace.

Please do not express a fervent hope
That I be brought to shame
by my depravity.

I seek not salvation, nor do I wish
to control those heinous urges;
I shall fulfil my own distasteful destiny.

I seek not redemption but prefer
to remain one of the unregenerate.

I seek not forgiveness
For I have forgiven myself,
and remain unrepentant.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2017
Moving in one’s lifetime tends to follow a distinctive pattern.
First we start accumulating: family, friends and treasured possessions,
and with that vast accumulation comes the need
for an expanded premises within which they be housed.

Finally with family gone and friends sorely decimated,
comes the time to massively downsize
and all that treasured furniture and bric-à-brac
needs to be discarded and persist only in memory.

I have to ask myself, when the time comes
for me to move to my last resting place,
who will then remain
to guard those precious memories?
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2024
It chills my heart; it pains my mind
To learn that one young soul
Has perished in that short sea stretch
From fear to freedom.

“Keep them out” is the hate-filled cry.
“Send them back across the sea,
Or to some equally unsafe nation.”
And, in the meantime, one young soul

Has perished.  He who wanted nothing
But to live a life free from fear.
Who can say?  Perhaps the fates have given him
A better rest than had been promised.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
Was it really 70 years ago?
Did I just leave school
and get conscripted
into the British Army?
(And get married?)

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 60 years ago?
Did I just get married
(for the second time)
and was I embarking
on a new career?

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 40 years ago?
Did I emigrate to Hong Kong
and spend five years
travelling the Orient?
(And divorced my third wife?)

Well, that was certainly not yesterday.

So what happened yesterday?
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2017
I find the simplest things
begin to have the power
to irritate me.
The fumbling with the buttons on my shirt;
the standing, balancing uneasily upon one leg
while pulling on my socks;
the insecurity of standing on a chair
to change an electric bulb.

Today marked the low mark
of my dejected spirit.
The simple act of fastening
the zipper on my coat which
caught up in the cloth and then
refused to budge.
I was reminded of that symptom of ageing:
first you forget to pull your zipper up,
then you forget to pull your zipper down.

My god, I feel depressed!
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2014
Only the tough survive.
It’s like a baptism of fire;
when the going gets too hot
the tough become firewalkers.
Singed souls
with asbestos soles.

I put myself out there –
all of me on the line.
I knew it wouldn’t last.
The immersion heater’s faulty
and I have to press
reset.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2017
People died.
I’m alive.
Flowers may perish.
Weeds survive.
Good men vanish,
Tyrants thrive.
Joseph Sinclair Jul 2022
I thought I needed your love
and hoped you needed mine.
I was delusional.
Greater by far to acknowledge desire,
and not to confuse wants with needs.

We all need strokes
but they come from within
and what is best to avoid
is the confusion
of the trigger for the bullet.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2014
by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!
This is intended to be included in the collection entitled Cultured Pearls which is to be devoted to poetry by poets other than myself that has had some special meaning for me.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2015
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.
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2016
Did you compare me to a Shakespeare sonnet
dear friend my head would not fit ‘neath my bonnet.
But, on reflection, I feel much better for
the recognition that it’s a mere metaphor.
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
There are times when some buried and forgotten part
of ones past self is called up from an aching heart
and it can be a most painful rebirth.
The memories fragile, soft hued, when thus unearthed,
are as disturbing as a dry brown flower
discovered in a book, may strike one like a meteor shower.

This is a situation that, when taken out of season,
evokes a past experience for whatever reason.
A rainbow within a bubble of soap,
the search for trouble with a bronchoscope,
the desperate wish just to recuperate,
despairing hope that they will not reciprocate.

And when all else is but a heap of ash,
other than that consigned to a memory cache,
then it is time to place within that store
those ills from which recovery can be no more;
to tread a path and seek a blessed state
from which to be a learned advocate
of such as heaven and not the living hell
in which the guilt of conscience still does dwell.

Now count your dead, you others who survive
as bees continue to enjoy their nectar in a hive.
As animals may play, imprisoned in a cage,
As we creative writers persevere despite our age.

It is but propaganda to deceive
and not sufficiently authentic so as to believe
when  Death, that great aggressor, determines to intrude
and interrupt the joy of an imperative  good mood.

I’ve opened curtains and raised many blinds
and peeped into the crevices of minds.
And now it seems at last it’s all been said
There’ll be no further peeps, and so to bed.
An  amended and updated version of a  longer poem published some time ago.
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2017
The scriptures tell us that
to everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die.

Forgive me then if I suggest
that this was not the time
for Emily.
It bears no sense or reason.
It was a fearful crime.

She was one of the blessèd ones
who offer so much sustenance to others
that they have little left over
for themselves.

It is not always a blessing
to survive.
Sometimes it is anguish
to be alive.

Now she has gone and we remain
to face a lifetime of pain.
But we should also strive
to keep alive the joyous memories
of all that she has brought into our lives.

Hers was a bright
unquenchable spirit.
The heartbreak of her vanished hair
produced a request for hats
that would enhance
and not detract.
Thus did she turn negatives
into positives.

The intensity of her smile
was such as to dispel
that monstrous regiment
of doubts and fears
that assailed us.
Thus did she bring us comfort.
Thus did she turn winter
into summer.

She always bore her sufferings
with fortitude beyond credence
and always thought of others
before herself.

Music was such a large part of her life,
for her the bells were always ringing.
She would be saddened beyond measure
if she believed our grief
prevented us from singing.

For life goes on
and we move on
and she would be the first to say
"It is right to grieve
it is right to display sadness,
it is right to shed tears
so long as you continue to believe
that I will sing with you through the years."

Her song may now be heard
in the notes of every twittering bird.
Her smile will be seen
in every flaming sunset,
in every shimmering rainbow;
in the beauty of nature
as profound
as once she loved.

Her joy will continue to be felt
in the waves that crash
upon the shore,
the wind upon our skin,
the blades of grass
beneath our feet,
where once she walked.

In the fleeting clouds
of blissful skies,
the woods and trees
that mark the hallowed ground
that once she trod.

But most of all
in the sound of every twittering bird,
her song will continue to be heard.
Joseph Sinclair Jul 2021
The shepherd is departed, and his flock
now wander on the fell,
or hide within the thickets
wherein the bleakest shadows dwell.

And when the black night fills the heart
with direst trepidation,
they know the purport of their loss;
the heartbreak of a nation.

So has it been, since time began
when leadership has vanished
and newcomers, that now adorn
the peaks, are simply planished.

Attend us shepherd from the grave,
we have need of your guidance
to keep us from a weaker hand
and ominous subsidence.
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