On Fate

Some Morning Tides Refuse to Turn

Birds Sing on till Eight Bells Ring,

Kings Sleep Fast while Kingdoms Burn

And Those Who Do, Just Do Nothing.

 

Yet still we See Beyond the Stall

To know that Time Unfolds Our Fate,

Its Ceaseless Hand to Sweep Us All

Ne’er once Too Soon and Ne’er Too Late.  

 

Reprieve

I dug and shaved the edges clean

My feet sunk deep where spade had been,

I Piled the Soil, The Deepest Higher

And sat a While entranced by Fire.

 

The peaty earth enriched my mind

till all on-top seemed far behind,

The Fox and Badger left their lair

to share a moment with me there.

 

Shadows cast by silver light

waxed and waned my thought-filled night,

As if to soothe some pain unseen

that I might rise new-born and clean.

 

And with the grandeur came the Sun

as every day before had done,

Yet in my mind some other seed

had turned its bulb toward my need.

 

I filled and topped my resting place

Sun warmed my back and kissed my face,

The night I spent before my Birth

So very near my last on Earth.

 

 

 

Paul Kagame,

Joined An Army,

Johnny Koroma

A Saviour-Misnomer,

Charlie Taylor

The Child Enslaver.

 

Mostly Forgot

by those who Did Not

Engage on Their Front

Enrage or Confront

Their Blood Addled,

Soil Soaked, Maniacal Hunt.

 

Paul Kagame

Rules an Army,

Johnny K

Taylor blew away,

Charlie Taylor

has a Durhamite Jailer.

 

Things Not Forgotten,

By those they dismembered

whose Corpses picked rotten,

whose riches ill-gotten

where gorged as if Righteously

to Them Begotten…

 

Their Graves unattended

Their Destructions Unmended

Their Children Unbowed

Their allegiance Avowed

The Carnage they Warred

For Such Hollow Reward

 

 

 

We are The Little Match Girl

Our Flame Long Gone

in a Smokey Curl

 

A Huddled Pile Stepped Across

The Corpse of a Prophets

Foretold Loss

 

Illuminations Starved then Snuffed

Our Ruminations

Not Enough

 

Be The Flame that Won’t Submit

Sear the Flesh

That Pinches It

 

Burn with Heat that Fires Will

That when it’s gone

Rages Still

 

A thousand miles away

The air is clear and still,

Gentle tides engulf the bay

The Lapwing call is shrill.

 

Here no nature sounds

The air is thick with death,

Scarlet pools encrust the ground

Mothers curse their breath.

 

Between the written lines

A Sea between two shores,

Where truth and lies opine

While misery endures.

 

I walked at dawn on Christmas Day

Through sheltered trees on Pilgrims Way

 

I had no need of destination

the purpose was of restoration

 

A shallow Sun’s reluctant rise

dissolved the Stars that woke my eyes

 

I was not led I had no gifts

my feeble mind weighed down by ifs

 

The lower Fork the higher Way

each reaching out before my Day

 

To take or pass each one by choice

is answer to a hidden voice

 

But in a clearing by The Loch

I found a place that I’d forgot

 

It spoke of where I made my start

and in that place I found My Heart.

 

Someone stole my bed

whilst I was at the front fighting,

I hadn’t slept for days

and yet

someone stole my bed.

 

Another man had his bed

I pulled him from it by his feet

shot him in the head

lay down and went to sleep.

 

I dreamt my head was blown apart

my dream was fractured,

the end and beginning separated

I couldn’t sleep without my dream.

 

Without my dream I couldn’t fight

or sleep or remember why

without my dream

I ceased

to be

 

That I saw fit to disagree

has been a burden placed on me,

though as I laid it there alone

the weight I lift must be my own.

 

The only quarter I might ask

is when the load is shed at last,

none might feel the need to bear

the waste of things I would not share.

 

I am a conduit

for shit

 

Quite literally

I process it

 

No coloured bins

for this or that

 

Just shoved in

and outward shat

 

A little like

our ancient trees

 

Recycled

by a few degrees

 

Degraded purposely

to Spoil

 

Not meant

to be extinctions oil

 

No second chance

for them or us

 

To coaly graves

we’re sunk and flushed

 

Filtered thin

back to the mire

 

No sheltered womb

or forming fire…

 

So where is

my own conduit

 

Through which I

too will pass as shit

 

The truth is

I’m disposable

 

Bury deep

and burn when full

 

 

Underwhelmed, he’s underground

turning

all his

Life Around.

 

Constructed, he’s constructing

all his

higher thoughts

Obstructing.

 

Loathfulness, he’s loathful

all his vengeful

plotting

Woeful.

 

Transcendent, he’s transcended

all his hope

of Freedom

Ended.

 

Emerging, he’s resurgent

all his

focussed Verve

Divergent.

 

Lonely, he’s alone

all his

bitterness

To Hone.

 

 

What is this blood that courses through?

that flows in me that flowed in you.

Our words and thoughts are not the same

yet still I’m burdened for your Blame…

 

for all the pathways you mistook

believing in some Holy Book,

or Rag that Waved upon a Mast,

Your final Post was not My Last.

 

All we can do is let it flow

imbued with what we’ve come to know,

and tainted as we may well be

it is our minds that set us free.

 

And yes, though we will err and fall

despite belief that we know all,

beyond our days new blood will come

to right the wrongs that we have done.

 

In Holding Pens where People Surge

they Throng to Congregate,

they Meet to Talk and Hone their Urge

to Spears of Blameful Hate.

 

In Open Lands where People Roam

they Settle to be Free,

they Meet to Talk of all that’s Known

Beneath their Fruitful Tree.

 

Where is the Line in Sand or Soul

Hard Forged between The Two

That Keeps each Half from Being Whole,

Is that Same Divide in You?

 

And if it is, how then to Shade

its Shadow into Light?

that Careless Borders Hateful Made

Diminish from Our Sight.

 

Impunity can be earned or granted.

Either way it is a gift to those with evil intent

by those content with evil.

 

Kindness seeks not currency or reward.

In the absence of both it is freely given,

often to those most in need by those unknowing need.

 

A hand outstretched seeks a hand withdrawn,

on meeting they create a bridge.

Bridges cross cavernous voids once impassable.

 

Impasse seeks to impune transgression

with kindness and with hope,

A bridge can be the pathway built with heart and threadbare rope. 

 

Formulaic words, archaic.

 

The bombs belong to someone

but are confused,

they fall where they don’t belong.

There are sofas facing out to Sea

inside hollowed concrete silos

that once were people’s homes.

People are exchanging people for people,

some of them are missing parts,

their minds are damaged and there is data-loss.

When faces recognise each other, they cry.

They are bussed across borders.

Streets are flag lined, some people raise their fists,

some people hang their heads.

 

The floors are blood blackened, the gates still broken.

Breakfast is abandoned, unblessed.

The would-be diners are choking underground, their captors blindfold.

Seeing in the dark what they could not in light, they seem alike.

Gods are in some other universe designing Gardens and better Arks,

writing new books with empty vessels they created.

Tearing ribs from chests to form new genders.

Serpents will not be introduced to the eco-system

and apples are off the menu this time around.

 

Meanwhile, decisions are being made that were already made,

the number of people that must die before peace comes has been arranged.

Only men with important titles and none know the figure, it’s their secret.

Young men are preparing their futures for misery,

they are collecting memories that will destroy their minds

burying them deep for now that they might blossom unexpected.

Their grandchildren will not understand their anger and confusion,

they will cower through family gatherings and mutter nonsense,

terrified of shadows.

 

Somewhere in a place not yet known a child is born,

soft and warm protected by its loving Mother.

It will learn all this and still know nothing of it,

little enough to repeat the pain.

Generational and racial trauma embedded in its DNA.

A book is being written now about its life,

only the dates and names need be changed,

 

You know the story.

 

I have Taken things from Children and sometimes from The Dead

Often both at once,

Yet not a Word was Said.

 

I have Broken Imposed Curfews, Commandments and The Law

In many Different Countries,

Protected by A War.

 

I have Spoken of Sedition, Incitement and of Hate

In many Secret Chat Rooms,

I’ve Schemed to Obfuscate.

 

I have Dealt with Kings and Scoundrels Crowned by their Conceit

In Chambers High and Lowly,

I’ve Grovelled at their Feet.

 

I have Sold out The Defenceless, The Useless and The Poor

In Trading Rooms and Boardrooms,

I’ve Cast them to The Floor.

 

I’ve Taken all the Plaudits, The Titles and The Gongs

In Their Palaces and Churches,

Absolved of all My Wrongs.

 

 

In the Folded Cliffs of Crackington Haven

Lived a Shadowed Cloak of Mythical Raven,

Cleft in Sandstones timeless Shale

Caressed within its Misty Veil.

 

Seas beneath would Swirl and Thrash

and on that Craggy Headland Dash,

Any Souls who Ventured Near

Through Ignorance or Absent Fear.

 

The Walkers, they would Come and Go

Unknowing of the Lives Below,

Like Sailor Merchants they would Pass

On Waves of Breezy Coastal Grass.

 

The Wings would Squat and Glower Long

At those who came though not Belong,

And with a Yellow Beady Eye

Cast down their Curse from Hidden Sky.

 

Of all who Passed Upon The Wave

Not one was by their Chose God Saved,

And even those who Sailed on By

Would in their Calm Port Someday Die.

 

The Lesson maybe we could Heed

Things Unseen Upon Us Feed,

And though we feel we Travel Free

The End’s the same for You and Me.

 

 

The Landscape doesn’t fit my eyes

Its man-made edges ask me why,

when all Earths borders touch the sky

do living things so cruelly die?

 

The Seascape doesn’t calm my eyes

In trenches deep bereft it lies,

When Ice Caps Melt The Planet Cries

So little in it Multiplies.

 

Fenced in and Farmed we Excavate

Yet all our knowledge comes too late

and drives between us words of hate,

where we destroy we should create.

 

So come on Mother do your Worst

rid yourself of those you’ve cursed

Who put themselves and riches first,

bring revelation unrehearsed.

 

 

I recall a disappearing handkerchief

waving as if in surrender,

but moving further away

smaller and smaller

along the slow curve of a railway track.

 

Mother was holding my hand,

I don’t remember what was happening

but I felt sad because she was crying.

It was quiet for a long time after

and nobody told me anything.

 

I want to talk to that child,

but he has gone.

Like the handkerchief, disappeared.

Now I am here with no hand to hold

The slow curve has closed its circle.

 

A small child is waving on a platform,

smaller and smaller.

A faceless woman clutches his hand

we recede,

we all recede.