Killing’s easy Talking’s not
It’s not enough to sit in the quiet of night and conjure peace,
for it’s in moments of furious hatred
We need the noise to cease.
When the steel or the Bludgeon fills the Hand,
and the defences are all but breached
when the lines are crossed we drew in the sand
When the end of Civility’s Reached
It’s not enough to withdraw and Blame War,
in the aftermath of an act
But to stem the Blood with the Words spoke before.
When the Pen and the Dialogue fade in Retreat,
and young men are pushed to the fore
it’s then the march must be stopped with the feet
It’s then that we must ask, what for?
Old Coat
One pocket full of crumbs
in the other shrivelled chestnut,
between weather fingered thumbs
The chaff we can’t forget rubs.
In the lining of lapels
are the remnants of soft petals,
and a fair ground list of spells
That a Gypsy never settled.
Where once the button met the eye
no longer shall they couple,
how elegantly they did lie
where now the creases sadly crumple
The threadbare loop is fraying more
each longer night untwisting,
it hangs there lonely on the door,
No earthly thing is listening.
National Trust
They took all of the stolen things and put them into crates,
they emptied out the Palaces
they planned their great escapes
They sailed out of the bay in fleets,
they kept their ensigns hid
they knew to keep the silence just like their fathers did
They sailed to where they once called home
they disembarked with glee,
ingloriously now alone in silent victory
They disgorged their silken pockets, the treasure chests and crates,
emblazoned all the crockery, beatified their greats,
then laundered all the plunder onto sterilised estates
Yet all this honest robbery we claim it as our own
complicit in our snobbery disregarding those unknown,
Displaying faded fortunes that once were someones home.
Headstone (On the first day of the Kabul evacuation)
Where do you start after twenty years of blood?
A thousand miles from the origins,
On a blank page like a tombstone awaiting the chisel.
The names have all been carved in stone and flesh,
They are burned in the memories of orphans and widows.
Some even breathe tonight that will be gone tomorrow.
Messages of love are punched on keyboards,
Anger is raging yet resigned to the calm of inevitable deliverance.
That brief sublime before the bullet hits the skull and in comes peace.
I see their faces smiling and grimacing alike,
I hear their laughter, their joy at being alive in troubled times.
I reach out into the night that takes us all, and imagine hope.
Extinction
Unfolding fell the canopy of silken wings,
catching air they spread their span
then like a storm which great change brings
they scorched the earth betrayed by man.
and when they took to their ascent
to leave what once was all that was,
no living thing asked where they went
nor mourned one day for what was lost.
Blake Avenged
Angels are such boring Prey
they hang around these gates all day
expressly charged to turn away
all who don’t do just as they say
But I am fallen and have no fear
of any souls that enter here
I bear the wings of lesser gods
who grant such things as they cannot
For I am free to choose my flight
whatever’s wrong whatever’s right
my Talons pluck their eyes of sight
that they might dwell in endless night
I roar and swoop to great applause
and soar above our masters floors
and all this too it could be yours
exchange these gates for open doors
Behind the Lines
Don’t worry too much that someone isn’t having their throat cut
while you sit on your couch,
while you flick through the channels,
While you peacefully slouch.
Don’t worry too much that there’s no-one beyond the wall
while you turn the next page,
while you inwardly rage,
and you do nothing at all.
Don’t worry too much that some hold the tide
while you splash in the shallows,
while you pray at All Hallows,
While you comfortably hide.
Don’t worry too much that their names are unknown
while you make your donations,
while you curse those cruel nations,
While they die alone.
Don’t worry too much that young men are dying
while you swallow the Kool-Aid,
With the price only they paid,
While our leaders are lying.
Don’t worry too much while you sleep fast tonight
that you’ll not wake in the morning,
to a new day that’s dawning,
That you’ll not be all right.
Our leaders sit in comfort while our young men and women put themselves in danger attempting to fix their incompetence. Armchair experts write poetry and advice to anyone who will listen, imagining they know what the streets of Kabul might be like. A small group of silent men and some women work tirelessly in ways that will never be reported in their own lifetime to save life and take life, in order to save life. They will come home quietly unannounced and Un-flagged to a nation of virtue signalling ignoramuses who imagine they could do what they do simply by thinking about it in a bloody armchair. Many of the silent actors will descend into madness and drunkenness, some will make good but none will get the credit they deserve and all will have to live with what they did and saw with no thanks or recognition. While every tom dick and harry knows better than those who can never speak.
Insolvent
Tonight the traffic sounds like abandonment
the universe expands ever outward
I’ll never find the place you went
In the Cathedral the Saints have turned their painted faces
toward the wall
from where gargoyles gurn the world seems small
The Sun refuses the Moon its Sky although there’s
room for all
and Wild Dogs howl not knowing why
A clank of sacred keys hangs heavy on rusted chain
unlocked or not the door remains the same
where prisoners forget their name
And so the years roll on and on marked by things that fade
another firework celebrates another dull parade
We bleed beyond the possible for a debt that can’t be paid
Forgotten Roadside Memorial
Oculus
Flooded with what we steal from eternity our Chambers are Gilded with the imaginings of victories and wisdom.
Yet all is illusion, not one atom is prisoner to man. For all men are bound by the fractured crust of expanding fusion, every cell entropic chaos.
Still, we record our various journeys as if they matter, we lie and deal and love and die for what is meaningless.
The truth burns holes in our mortal canvas and we perish to dust, to rise some other day beneath a weeping Oculus
Splinters
Now all the best things are broken
and the bough is splintered
Our hearts are healing they’re no longer open
once sacred vows rescinded
We cover our scars with new found love
the bitterness becomes the feast
When those we loved we hideaway
it’s they who suffer least
Shut up and listen
Shut up and listen
I couldn’t have managed all these weeks without the unfailing ego’s of the ever-wise.
Where might I have found myself without the endless invites to self indulgent zoom circle jerks?
I might have simply gone for a walk shut my own self pity down for a while, read something a proper writer wrote.
Just for once shut the fuck up and listened to another voice not quite so in love with itself.
I wish more of us had done that, too late now you all look like the egotistical twats you truly are, damage done.
The futility of Seasons

And the tears that fell were as leaves falling out of season,
in no Earthly Cycle,
for no Human Reason
Yet still they fell and were trampled into time
dull footprints mulching
your memories with mine,
then when Spring time pushes its head above the soil
when new buds bloom that all may be forgot,
We’ll wish away the seasons but know that we cannot.
A Requiem of sorts
Is it a bad thing all this death? Making room for something else, shuffle along and don’t block up the hallway please. I’m having a substantial meal later today, my Yorkshire Puddings will be floating on pints of Guinness. I’m socially distancing myself from sanity, it’s comforting to surrender responsibility and to do as I’m told. Holding my partners hand has become an intimate act for which I’m grateful, we could have sex in a public place provided no more than six people are present (does that constitute dogging) can I mitigate it as a necessary act to maintain good mental health? A return to innocent pleasure has heightened my appreciation of intimacy. The sale of “Viagra Connect” has notably dropped in my postcode. Spotify reminded me today of my favourite tunes of 2020, they are a requiem for a lost year, a reflection of woodland walks, of marital breakdown and a flood of tidal booze rising and falling to the sound of the Netflix home page opening. “Rightmove” is now at the top of my Bookmark tabs and I have come to despise estate agents even more than I used to. I haven’t hugged my mum and dad for over a year but to be honest that isn’t such an unusual occurrence, although the imposed restriction has made me realise I should have done it more. Even Bob Dylan got his mojo back and wrote a song like a Psalm…I guess “The times aren’t a-changing” See you on the flip side folks…I’m off for a substantial feed.
Visiting The Dead

A sodden wreath wheels across our gentle path
while scudding clouds like aftermath
chase crows across greyscale skies
that in their bleakness ask us why
both young and old succumb to war
to lay beneath this forest floor
where reverently we softly tread
and whisper praise upon the dead
Then with your hand so firm in mine
among the ruins of our time
I kiss your warm and loving face
with thanks that I can leave this place
In nature

Two chestnut horses beneath a Blackthorn tree
their perfect forms against the sky,
we stopped and watched incuriously
as they no doubt did you and I,
their breathing heavy, their eyes afire,
alert with every sinew flexed,
did spark in us our bright desire
to follow that which we know best.
A place called home

There is nothing new in any day
that wasn’t there before,
though once a while along the way
there opens up a door,
which through a beam of light might shed
some loving warmth unknown
to take a soul thought long since dead
toward a place called home
Cathedral eaves
In the eaves of this ancient place
nestled in what once grew free
a feathered ball of gods good grace
its eyes plucked out no longer see
and further up toward the nave
sweet Jesus bleeds for you and me
a crown of thorns which Jokers gave
though fashioned from some crueller tree
and here below we raise our eyes
still sighted clear though not as wise
as those now passed and gone before
who closed them dead beyond this door
so what is clearer to be seen
What is to come or what has been?
© Wolfgar 2020
Perennial
A flower now so open toward The Sun,
unshielded from harm in fleeting perfection
knows not the seed from which it was begun
nor fears the darkening skies that prophesy rejection.
We see that undue power in the faces of the young
who with momentary glory believe it is forever won,
then with that memory captured we hold it close a while
and like a bloom toward the Sun we raise our heads to smile.
© Wolfgar 2020