Wrapped in sky and heathered hills

caressed by briny horses wild,

so far from dark satanic mills

survives the empire’s favoured child.

 

Once stripped and starved of tongue and god

its people slaved and banished cold,

crofts and mànas razed to sod

that none who dwelled there might grow old.

 

But land in time calls back its own

disgorging tyrants, killing kings,

and those returning hold what’s known

that those who stole could never bring.

 

This place so loved by earth and man

too much that any heart could own,

will never bow to scheme or plan

that was not on its own shores grown.

Ice puddles like lily pads
an archipelago of creeping freeze,
stepping stones of tears perhaps
shed by autumns grieving trees…
then captured in the frozen glare
of sunlight’s first defiant rays,
they’ll fade as if were never there
to herald in such hopeful days.
So many things unseen by men
the simple and the subtle change,
that slip through time like ink through pen
rewritten on an unturned page…
like bridges built between the wars
that yield to fear and promised gain,
all reaching out, their hope ignored
when war in season comes again.


 

I see them in forgotten towns

men in pairs and burdened mums,

nowhere stares with heads bowed down

“Something broken this way comes”

 

In carless forecourts of bleak hotels

where fag butts rot and litter blows,

cruel deals are done that no one tells…

We turn our heads so no one knows.

 

While in the dens of whispered spite

be-trolleyed locals sneer and scoff,

at those who stain their one birthright,

and dare to be of different cloth…

 

This inheritance of human spill

a cash cow for the Corporate Kings,

who for 14 years and lack of will

made misery their sum of things.

 

Times will change as time must do

with cut and thrust new Kingdoms Come,

and who’s to say it won’t be you

that those who rise will hateful shun.

 

 

Though there are wars that we cannot see

their wounds and scars leave history

some is carved in marbled stone

the names of those beloved and known…

 

and some is seared to flesh and mind

unknown to those we left behind

who waved us off and served us well

and in their waiting shared our hell

 

Flesh is commodity
guns universal
uniforms reversable
flags incontrovertible

Kimchi for Borscht
tank for a horse
fodder for force
mutual of course

Bodies for bags
medals perhaps
dictators relapse
generational gaps

Star for a Sickle
water for trickle
allegiance for fickle
too much for so Little

Blood for the soil
dollars for oil
horrors recoil
exploited for toil

Glory for States
closed borders for gates
freedom abates
oblivion awaits…

The Jag is in the driveway
behind the iron gates,
the home was christened “My-Way”
(he who loses hesitates)

All the frills are garish
from The Pillars to The Pool,
the gothic-faux nightmarish
its rendition most uncool.

The topiary is phallic
it’s freudiently flawed,
the colour palette so manic
passing psychopaths applaud.

A bronze eagle guards the doorway
it’s talons dipped in gold,
Munch’s art screams in the hallway
a fucking car-crash to behold.

A kaleidoscope of carnage
a tragedy of taste,
like a turd that can’t be varnished
or a Henry Moore defaced.