Words were once no more than shapes

like humans formed from lowly apes,

who dragged their violent knuckles down

yet rose to Coronate a Crown.

 

Beneath such weight the mind succumbs

with pummelling fists its reason numbed,

from apes to men cruel jungles rise

to build fine cages full of lies…

 

bejewelled and vast with gold adorned

the “Uneasy Head” lies severed, scorned…

by blade and greed evolved through time

this incarnation, our gravest crime.

 

 

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”

 

There is no specificity intended in these lines regarding any particular seat of power. The observation is toward the corruptible nature of power itself.  

 

 

Words fall into dreams like waterfalls

at precipice, where flat earth fools

congregate in village halls

and ponder how to subvert schools

with grappling hooks cross playground walls.

 

It’s just a dream with raining words

no sense required in slumbered peace,

in forests where trees fall unheard

and kingdoms end yet never cease…

a rainbow’d storm of tumbling words.

 

To wake to jumbled alphabets like children’s

bricks beneath your feet,

where days begin lest you forget

your scattered consciousness incomplete,

then try to build a wall with them

that somehow has those two worlds meet.

 

Awake is just a dream reversed, turned

inside out and back to front

a replay of the unrehearsed you thought

you knew and didn’t want…but somehow

you could not resist so placed yourself

beneath its font.

 

The house stands quiet behind its useless walls,

as if a wedding cake cut but not devoured.

Discarded tools and children’s toys, the crumbs of life.

Inside, a stagnant calm of dust breathes for no-one.

 

Patches of earth curled with weeds.

The scratchings of beasts consumed by men

score the kill pen floor. Men who ate with fingers

greased with blood and vengeful minds.

 

Veiled women’s screams linger in the stairway,

muffled detonations absorb their sobs.

Imagine the swirl of air, the cordite stench

the settling of the coming silence, until now.

 

Images that ripple out beyond this frame,

across the jagged mountains and ever-changing seas.

Within this place peace has come…

its displaced rage beats in younger hearts.

 

Chalk and flint the Saintly path

that wends its tranquil peaceful way,

its steepled skies belie the wrath

that split the clouds on darker days.

 

The refuge of the oaken pew

the coolness of the sacred stone,

that drew the workers, poor and few

to ask they give all they had known.

 

With barley grain and nurtured lamb

on harvest thanks the faithful came,

as humble as only humble can

they laid their toil in Jesus’ name.

 

And now the marbled gentry lie

entombed and marked for all to see,

beneath the spires of Hampshire sky

as common man lies neath the tree.

 

Buried in her wedding dress

the tomb a ruin now,

cracked open is what once was blessed

where dogs and vermin prowl.

 

On fertile steps of Grove and Vine

where boots so cruelly stamped,

once yours, now theirs’s, that once was mine,

too many tribes encamped.

 

But hearts and minds don’t document

with paper, pen and deed,

what’s taken, forced, was never lent

it’s blood that bears the seed…

 

and blood that flows finds fertile earth

to grow its tender roots,

where shoots and saplings nurture worth

to crush the stamping boots…

 

that smashed the graves and raised the rats

where fruit and families grew,

that they in turn one day perhaps

return to lands they knew.

 

 

Whilst in The Lebanon in 1996 I was on a rural walk in the hills above Beirut in a place called Abey. Throughout history, as one might imagine the land had been conquered, occupied, retaken and re-settled on many occasions. There are ancient and relatively new burial sites across the region. Some so recent that the damage could be interpreted as desecration.

 

Whilst on the ramble accompanied by several of my colleagues and our trusted protective hounds I came across (or rather our dogs led me to) a fractures tomb in which I saw the skeletal remains of a woman apparently buried in her wedding dress. The dogs were obviously keen to get inside the tomb and I moved them away.

 

That image has stayed with me all these years and I have often thought about who the people were who had lived it that then deserted spot prior to their displacement.

 

That personal memory can be multiplied to thousands who have witnessed displacement first hand. I cannot imagine fully how they must feel. Such events have been visited upon many communities in that region…the cycle of revenge and resentment is forecast to endure for many years unless someone has the courage to simply stop.

 

I hear the things that go unsaid

that slip between the words,

the spaces where you think perhaps

your silence goes unheard.

 

I hear the things your voice betrays

that crack when horror speaks,

the cough you make you think perhaps

belies you’ve dived too deep.

 

I see the things you can’t relate

that dead look in your eye,

the moments when you think perhaps

your damage slips on by.

 

I see the things you can’t control

the tremor in your hand,

the steadying grip you think perhaps

displays you have command.

 

I feel the things at which you flinch

the things that bring you fear,

the involuntary twitch you think perhaps

too slight to be too clear.

 

I feel the things that give you pain

the turning of your face,

the lowered head you think perhaps

removes you from that place.

 

Of all the things I feel for you

the greatest one is love,

the scars you hide I see right through,

your healing is enough

 

The backbone of this giving Isle

from marshy fen to firth of forth,

has soured the face of many a smile

beneath the crown that ventured north.

 

Then Westward too, the Kingdom torn

across a Wilding Sea,

its Children poor, to paupers born

that bore the likes of you and me.

 

With baubles traded, power for land

The Lords abused their folk the same,

to sit opposed yet hand in hand

a Kingdom still by other name.

 

Yet here we sit behind the spine

that bears our history’s weight,

though all within is yours and mine

we are sold out at discount rate.

 

Should we seek beyond our view

with open arms to near and far?

what inward turns does inward harm

the sum of all we truly are.

 

I’m in the shallows now

the deep has stepped up to its shelf.

My feet firm in the silky sand

at the altar of this eroding land.

 

In the transition of silt and wash

a baptism of emergence plays-out.

The salty brine for peppered air,

where pollutants vie for surface share.

 

Where can I be cleansed

that I am not the host of dirt?

The Creator and The Parasite

a vehicle of entropic blight.

 

Between two worlds one world converged,

the Venn became a single sphere.

Withdrawn, diminished, bloated, full,

withered between two poles that pull. 

 

 

Scratch at the night,

the irritation of darkness has you at its mercy.

 

Scratch At the night,

the visions are advancing down mirrored corridors.

 

The rash of the Sun will return

to flake its hours upon your open wounds.

 

The rash of the Sun will climb high

to pour your memories back into you…

 

 

A Sea Loch Graveyard walled and gated

hues of purple peated earth,

the stones stand stoic, weather dated,

washed up from their briny birth.

 

Some names unknown “A Sailor” lies,

in silence resting side by side.

Adrift they came from distant skies

as tears that fell, though never cried.

 

On other shores long lives lived out

to wonder at what might have been,

had warships turned their hulls about

and left these barren hills unseen.

 

And here they stay to linger long

their bones and dust remembered well,

though this is not where they belong

they are embraced as those who fell.

 

 

To see a world in a coffee cup

and a hell inside a TV screen,

then still to rise and take a sup

and blink away the horror seen.

 

A memory flashed upon a mind

staunched by bitter pill,

to make a man and mankind blind

cannot the memory kill.

 

The slave fed by his master’s hand

is starved and saved the same,

he lives upon a lesser land

with no choice but to remain.

 

And trickled down as actions do

the roots of life are numbed,

there is no hope or help for who

to such wickedness succumb…

 

except they rise with opened eyes

unshackled from their fear,

no longer bound by chains of lies

nor deaf to what they hear.

 

With gratitude to William Blake

Not as canvas but as frame

the eye and hand do make the day,

which with the Sun unbeckoned came

and at its want will fade away.

 

Between the rise and fall of light

in all that comes and all that goes,

a wealth of life befalls our sight

that none before could surely know.

 

And in that fragile frame of time

our brush strokes fill the fleeting page,

which with its turn comes close to fine

to paint the picture of an age

 

Their squalid death to purify,

on Olives Mount a bridge to God.

Then Cedar Wood and Herbs burnt dry

to raise a Kingdom not forgot.

 

And in that ritualistic spell

the Kohen taints his cleansing soul,

that he is now unbound for hell

unless the cycle onward rolls.

 

For future joy why all this death

where toil and dark abound?

Why not the warmth of living breath

to bear us where new worlds are found?

 

The cell wall didn’t feel like her skin

the coming night held no mystery

 

Just the sound of clanking routines

to punctuate the misery of solitude

 

It was not like the battlefield

where he could satiate his emptiness

 

Long nights of nothing rescued by morning

when another kill would replenish his reason

 

Here the unwanted new day brought unlocking

forced association without a worthy enemy

 

Her touch replaced by seething hatred

the red brick rough and bloody against his fist

 

The desert was an open cage of confinement

in this new place rage seeped through solid walls

 

Some men could cry he could not

his old life had already forgotten him

 

 

 

Truth sat upon her righteous cloud

drifting serenely unchallenged and proud

 

She felt so aloof up there on her roof

no need of trivial burdens of proof

 

But truth had forgot of the things she knew not

so many truths changed outside of her lot

 

The people below would point to the sky

shaking their heads as she drifted on by

 

In such rarefied air there was little to share

of changes below she didn’t much care

 

Her anchor worked loose and the tether undid

the ground slipped from view the horizon was hid

 

In the spaces between where balance had been

a new world evolved that was no longer seen

 

So seek truth with your eyes to speak truth in clear view

for the void shelters lies that truth can’t undo

 

Words repel an Empty Page

A Robin flits The Tree,

Heaven quells Angelic Rage

and sets A Demon Free…

 

Omission and Commission

with or without thought,

are licence to permission

when bent to please The Court…

 

To do or not to do is Dust

when in the balance weighed,

what’s gone is gone and surely Just

when on the field played…

 

Yet time reveals the damage done

when viewed from journeys end,

of intrigues thread so finely spun

no tongue could twist to mend. 

 

 

In the cool air of the nave

the walls retreat from all but grief

 

The space between hangs still

no need of tears or mock belief

 

The silence is enough of heaven

that souls need never leave this place

 

The flag draped vessel so proudly primed

an end regaled in humble grace

 

I thought to write without one word that placed our species here,

though in one line my mind deferred all hopeful want of such idea.

 

To write the firmament unlit or forest stripped of woodland life,

this sphere devoid of us in it might surely mean some other strife…

 

would in our place too meekly rise beneath such wasteful ways

and do more harm than human life in half as many days.

 

What more are we than what might be of greater harm or lesser blame?

we cannot set our conscience free nor can we hide our shame…

 

but we might tread a lighter path to move with fragile care

that when our time has gone at last there’s time enough to spare.

 

Built that someday they would come,

their war and their solution done.

Not by rail or cattle truck,

not by chance and not by luck.

 

By design of no return

In Blood & Soil their New World earned.

Crushed and killed that they might rise

to rule beyond cold baltic skies.

 

When enemies invert their roles,

what’s lost and won is more than souls.

With so much gone not one thing gained

that on their blitzkrieg’d shores remained.

 

Drones and tanks and Zyklon B

raised two cities by a sea,

One to never serve a guest,

Another, where only dead men rest.