The ruins peered out from behind
The blue-flecked crag
Where eagles nested.
Wind-blown, storm-tossed
Only the walls remain.
The turrets are now heaps of grass covered
Bricks, the keep a muddy mound.

Here, once were warriors,
Draped in furs, bearing swords
That glinted across the sea in defiance,
Defending the land from strangers.
Here, once were warriors-
All long gone!

Time itself has altered what once
Was considered unalterable.
When kings ruled from inland palaces
And long powerful ships caressed the jagged
Shore; now washed up on the beach
Like the kingdom they protected, flotsam:
Cruelly ruined planks of elm, distorted by
Sea and salt; masts broken and disfigured.

A once glorious people, now gone!
Palaces overthrown!
All hanging onto unforgiving Time
Like fossilised carbuncles.
Ripped from Time in a plethora of
Anguished voices dying slowly-
Calling out for resolution.

Head bowed, flowing across the water
Like an organic sepulchre,
Lost in the wriggling reeds
It raises its head once more,
Glancing mutely around
It sighs, its breath dying in the snow.
A symbol of light,
The swan is transfigued.

How absurd to stand
On moving land,
To touch the sky
As planets roll by

To drink the rain
Knowing from where it came,
To eat fruit and corn grown
From dead flesh and bone.

To enjoy the heat of the sun,
A vast nuclear bomb,
To breath the air
That burning diesel put there!

Psychiatrists said my son was mad
But I only saw a child,
He needed to be locked up, he was dangerous and bad
They declared, but I knew he was only wild.

Psychiatrists have for decades employed
ECT, that damages brains, destroys memory;
With omnipresent power employed
The soul-disabling effects of SS-influenced lobotomy.

They prescribed (prescribe) addictive drugs
To all and sundry, on a whim,
Giving them to children, like street-wise thugs
Covered in expensive bling.

I took my son away
Protecting him from a psychotropic shower,
Until he’s strong enough to have his say,
Not silenced by mis-used power.

He talks of love and wondrous things,
Of things he’s read and seen
All they can see is a boy who stupidly grins-
Like playground bullies, ignorant and mean.

They said my son was mad
Needs to be drugged, pinned down, abused
But surely the world is worryingly sad,
Allowing people to be so used?

The curious activity of men/women

makes me wonder precisely when

both will learn how to conjoin

with rabbits, geese, bull and lion.


Talking incessantly like birds,

roaring like lions. However absurd!

snapping like crocodiles

or habitually waiting in human files,


torturing like cats

water-boarding rats,

rolling like logs

snarling like dogs.


snorting like pigs

gobbling up figs

In everyone an animal lurks

whether saints or jerks!