Paul M Chafer

Paul M Chafer Oct 2010

As I enter the room,
She comes to me,
And asks, - demands –
“so, do you love me?”
I nod, smile, and reach,
My hand caressing her face.
“Hmm, you do not love me,”
She says, pushing into my palm.
“Only, know this, you are mine.
All the same.”
My fingers dance along her spine,
She arches, green eyes widening.
“Oh, yes, yes, just there,”
As I press, firmly,
Lovingly, affectionately.
“I do love you,”
I whisper,
Scratching beneath her chin.
“What’s not to love,”
She says, boxing my hand,
Before returning to her basket,
Her contended purr,
Speaking a thousand words.

Paul M Chafer Oct 2010

Awakening Winter

As I wander down, twisting paths,
Low leaden skies, threatening rain,
Leaves drift down like confetti,
As winter awakens, once again.

Trees, their branches almost bare,
Rake and claw, at a heavy sky,
Thrashing impotently to be free,
As searching winds, rustle on by.

Bracken, faded yellow and brown,
So cloying with the scent of death,
A decaying, withering, tangled mass,
Autumn steals a last, silent breath.

Frost creeps in, coating the ground,
Painting trees and hedgerows white.
Woodland life, skulks and hides,
Avoiding the snap of winter’s bite.

Shortening days: lengthening nights,
Are forcing temperatures to fall,
A babbling brook becomes silenced,
The Ice-queen spreads her shawl.

Rain soon becomes transmogrified,
Within raging blizzards of snow,
Winter heralding an early arrival,
With a cool, breath-taking show.

Oh so cold, but I won’t complain,
For merciless winter simply laughs,
My breath pants in foggy plumes,
As I wander down, twisting paths.

Paul M Chafer Oct 2010

Just to Be

To hear the child,
through outpourings
of tears, is to hear
a child in need.
To help the lost,
to search within
themselves, is to help
them to succeed.
To recognise sadness,
concealed in brave
composure, is to know
how far we fall.
To sense one’s love,
through layers of
deep emotion, is to
know, love conquers all.
To believe in oneself,
despite latent natural
desires, is to accept
the Karma inside.
To rise above mortality,
slipping free of safe
shores, is to sail on
the spiritual tide.
To forgive the listener,
who cannot hear the
word, is to mourn one
who’ll never be free.
To touch one’s heart,
so breathing life into
life, is to reveal
what it is, just to be.

Paul M Chafer Oct 2010

Boy Soldiers

We stalked hawthorn hedgerows,
Backyards our battlefields,
Wielding wooden swords,
Dustbin-lids, for our shields.

We scouted railway cuttings,
Long abandoned and disused,
Where friendship’s blended alloys,
Were cast, forged and fused.

We patrolled village streets,
Marched along muddied lanes,
Proudly defending ‘our land’,
From raiding, heathen, Danes’.

We boldly challenged Vikings’,
Beneath a Sixties-summer-sun,
Bonding loyalty, faith and trust,
That will never, come undone.

Those days will not return,
Memories-mismatched-truth,
Recalling the fallen heroes,
Fighting follies of our youth.

Protecting imagined Kingdoms,
Lost in time, for evermore,
Boy soldiers standing guard,
In Castles built from straw.

written for boyhood friends, Graham and Michael Tune.© copyright with Author

Paul M Chafer Sep 2010

Brave Voices

Be brave,
You have no choice;
When trying to change the world.
People cannot, or simply refuse to see,
New ways forward, promoting harmony.

Inevitably, others will always ridicule,
Their ignorance blocking your path,
So solidly entrenched, unchangeable,
Pouring scorn over radical ideas.

Beneath their mockery, they sense,
The Border fences are breaking,
Chains of Religion are snapping,
Unshackling, Political manacles.

Revolutionary meeting of minds,
Sowing seeds of the unknown,
Voices unleashing subtle energies,
Diminishing established power.

Reveal to those, now choosing to see,
New ways forward, promoting harmony.
When trying to change the world.
You have no choice:
Be brave.

Inspired by and written for, D, Gary La Buda, and Irwin. © copyright with Author

Paul M Chafer Sep 2010

Do You Hear?

Do you hear the deep silent oceans?
Heed the unending silence of space?
Listen to the multitude chattering.
Voices competing in our human race.

We yearn for the silence of serenity.
Peaceful oasis within the shrill clamour.
Seeking harmony, calmness, tranquillity.
Amongst the glitz, the greed and the glamour.

Inside my temple, forever under siege.
The persecuted and downtrodden plead.
Never accusing or begging: simply asking.
Do you hear? Do you weep for their need?

The lonely, the destitute and homeless.
The cold and the hungry, calling for aid.
Are their cries lost? Or do you hear them?
Does the tragedy hurt? Do their pleas ever fade?

Imagine one quiet moment: one still minute.
And for that minute, hear the suffering and pain.
The distress echoed through deafening silence.
Misery of innocents heard, again and again.

Silent white clouds drift majestically by.
A noiseless dew-drop, sparkles and glistens.
Eternally hushed, the faintest of whispers.
Do you hear? No one hears: unless someone listens.

© Paul Chafer 2014

Commisioned and written for The Right Honourable Mo Mowlam.

Paul M Chafer Sep 2010

Doddering On

It is strange, sad, but true,
I now have a disordered mind,
Reasoned coherent thought,
All replaced and left behind.

Things I have to do: or not;
Run away as if to escape,
The day’s events rerunning,
On a deceptive loop of tape.

Mismatched memories amass,
Flickering coloured thought,
Unfocused faded imagery,
So stressed and overwrought.

‘Because of age’, so I’m told,
Golden years such a silly sham,
Knowing then what I do now,
I might even know who I am!

Alas I don’t: not anymore
Neither do I really care,
When not myself I’m someone else
Together, we do make a pair.

I am content, nothing matters,
As I reach life’s setting sun,
Basking in the happy memories
Of things, I’ve never done.