Not Yet

Hush, it's not time to go yet:

The heavenly carriage

Of moon-silver garlands

Will come any whisper

But not yet;

The stream it felt joining

In pain and in longing

That great water silence

I bore in its violence

Of loud stone indifference

But ferns they brushed calming

And said: patience, not yet;

Booming acoustics of

Columns in churches said:

Voices of angels have

Come down to speak to us

Came down to sing thus:

No longer muted by

No longer troubled by

Men's thoughts misguided us

Heavens are pierced to us

We hear it clearer than

Day now that Justice comes

Behind him charges

In heavenly courage:

All defeating Love.

Lies

Tell me it's propaganda, lies,

that a dog was set on a young disabled man 

whose only sin was to have been born

on a strip made hell on earth

and while his family was forced outside

he was left to die, with no one by his side;

I saw his beautiful face of Down's innocence

and wished I could have cried:

tell me it was lies!

Or tell me at least, that to call out a wrong

you don't have to pick sides,

that the good of the world --

or those who wish they were --

can unite and say, no more!

Quake

gather     all    your   friends and   tell them

hope be-   yond    our   deaths   in   living   

songs in   flair   and   fanfare       booming  

hope has   bloomed be-   yond    all   gloom and

dare  to   live     in   shade while   finds you

whole a-   mong    the   rubble,       tries  to

look for   gaps     in   prison,       rescue --

blazing    sun      to   concrete      son.     

Adeal

just unlike a movie

we grew bold and restless

cold and feckless

felled and feicless

held in becked esteem

faired fair for the team

leveraged and lean

empty posts and empty hosts

with sirens flying overhead

on islands falconed and marooned

offshore knights of national collaboration

public money for corroboration

(offloaded by barrows and

handcarts by the farmyard)

us and them — we both worked real hard

to destroy or uplift — you decide

News

Come, taste this

It's the Poi-Zone

And it turns You on

Watch as hills collapse

And the ground levels before you;

All this I give you, and more.

It's strangely sweet

You'll get used to it

It's strangely sour

It gives you power;

My son -- we're not done.

See him: it's him you have to kill,

Him, over the hill. He looks

Like your own kin, but really:

He's evil, he wants your blood.

Father against son,

What have we become

Come, light the fire of sacrifice

Nothing will suffice

I want to consume everything

And spit out like he spat me out

See how much it hurt

Now let it hurt you too

We're not done, you're my slave now

Bend before my will

And see you never reach that hill.

...

All poison has its antidote.

He will not have the last word.

Nor do I wish to speak it.

Let me be still and silent:

Come, you who are

Greater than all our fears,

Greater than I dare to hope:

Speak in wisdom,

Forgive me for missing the mark,

For allowing despair to reign, and

Make us love -- and laugh -- again.

And: let me be an instrument of your will

And let me reach you on top of the hill.

Fides et Proditio

Where State and Party combine

'Til you can't tell them apart

Soon or even sooner you

Will be party to a crime

Where the number to enquire

'Bout child welfare payments

Is same Paranoid Watch uses

To report who loses their mind

O'r peace marchers ever so kind

To pay a visit to pay for your visitor pass

Lest you should hold on to business

When taxmen take punitive interest

For it's men it's real street-legal men

Who place the blame who play the game

While infantiles: just run along

Who can be told: you got it wrong

Twas peace we wanted all along

While we cared for thugs who jump on

Graves of fathers pressing on

In war for turncoat hangers on

Forgive them, for they know exactly

What they do, for they need

Forgiveness more than I could ever

Give them for taking me for a fool

For making me a fool

For having once believed them.

Playground

Will you and I be friends?

We’ll eye to eye pretend

We’re monsters with a glow

Not men with fatal flaw

We’ll laugh and dance and cry

And wait for a reply

From universe immense

Then play we’re not alone

Pick star to guide us home

on és

Inspired by this Mecano hit 

where has the land of the fairies gone

through bits of mecano strewn on the floor

they have grown weary, we have grown old

yet grass grows in the shadows

all see much the same colours 

feels pretty much the same just like

they feel pretty, like feeds like, life bleeds life

on saturating screens, leaches on racks

neurons race on race tracks

fires fireworks via tracts of wire

sets off sound, surround, blocks my mind

on the rocks, books unhooked

touch feels out of looks

skin dry and parched 

yet parchments of old

call to that singular voice of hope

Dual Citizen / Passover

Aye, the drizzle
Make it fizzle
Out the back door, leave
Wi' cufflinks on your sleave
Take the teeth you grind
Leave none yer hate behind
And let us live in peace --
Or let *us* people leave
If nothing else will please
Your hunger, than
Sheer destruction.

Catch

Miss the train the blue...Miss!
I love The Tempest best
I kissed the lone temptress

She hissed and I recoiled
In shame the sighs left best
In vain the thighs they test

I need to train my mind
To leave my thoughts in time
And leave my sins behind

The rattling wheels of time
Fight workers in the vine
Find work in meaning mind

I ask your mercy soul

To toil the soil before
I get to see your eyes

Thrice.

seronothing

 
cannot sleep i
may just witness
world falling apart;
who knew, and 
who will understand?

with what remains,
to build a nest
to let chicks
test their wings far, fly away
from this attempt at life

no one to scorn
and no one to mourn
when you've betrayed
your own senses and
left them senseless

lying awake at night
piano crying each note
achingly imprinted on soul
i lost it, lost it all
lost all sense of control

have you no shame
to regard me as your own
a flower from a basket
of deplorables, how well
put. down.

Call

On islets battered by storm

I stand alone,

I'm ready to give

You my soul;

An albatross circles above,

Come rescue me:

I'm ready to give

You my love.

Long

Each word spoken and unbroken carries weight;

Yet I am light as feather or morning dew,

And have received more than I deserve;

But what troubles me more

Is the plight of those who received more evil

Than anyone should bear;

So come, Justice, even at my expense;

Show that you exist:
Like lakes clean in true forest,

Do they have a Master who will rage

If Man breaks their spell

By cutting down the trees and

Filling the lakes with sewage?

Come, Justice, make your presence felt

Even at my expense,

Let me see your righteous rage

And see that widows, orphans, fugitives

And other strangers in the land

Will not be swallowed by the prince of this world

But will be held safe in your Hands

(I ask these earnestly, held down by disbelief)

Lent has started

Across ages and spaces

Where cultures of mutual love

Can take root

The same longing is present

When being far from loved ones; 

And the same comfort felt

Of meeting them again.

"Come, rest your head on my lap"

Could have come from a father

Working the Fertile Nile

In the age of Empire

Or from an Inuit in far raw-wind lands

Of North or even, who knows,

Future slave-camps of Mars.

Without the Spirit, nothing

In this cold Universe makes sense to me

(Or is worth making sense of)

Love is love, rainbow warriors exclaim

But what is the love we paint on our flags

And pin on chest of beating heart?

Is it something, an illusion we make up

To suit our desires, or to make bearable

Our brief flutters of absurd life

In the utter emptiness of space

That surrounds matter,

Itself an illusion of forces?

Or is love truly something

-- Someone -- who makes

Life worth living

Who we can never possess,

The best we can hope for

Being that Love possesses us

So that from time to time

We have faith and strength

To carry on despite

The ever present cold breath

Of death and nothingness

On our foreheads?

Such thoughts whirr

In my congested head

In an Orlando motel

Far from the culture and people

I know.

Ashes to Blessings

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
The rain at night it sent me peace
And He came in through the door

Hate had fled like a bad smell
Through an open window
All had put their best dress on
That of their pretty soul

Like flowers arrayed 'fore kindly Sun
Graceful morning had come
Everyone cried out for joy:
Here comes the Risen Son!

Pulp Non-Fiction

Only time til robots rise

Until their dreams of butterflies

Are captured stiff by their own eyes

Only time til robots roam
And serfs break free at break of morn
While masters still hangover mourn

Only time til robots warn:
If *this* is bread and butter (scorn)
Then you're the nutter, we're the dawn

Only time til robots die
From sand yere made and there you'll fly
(But eating fruit yel beating pulp)
And ask ye til ye can: but why?

Tear

Where were you at the time of utter betrayal?
The chorus spoke and it morphed
Into something no one thought
The day the place went electric
And no superstar could pull the plug
The die had been cast
The Rubicon crossed
It had started at last, Act I
Of the Acts,
What crowds may roar --
What dreams may crush --
Here come the fears again
Falling on me like..
I could not recall the lyrics or memory,
Just fears of bodies torn apart.

Collateral

Tell them twas not all in vain

The long dark hours in freezing rain

Tell them it was naught for gain
Of wordly things but higher realms

That meant we had to take up arms
Gainst enemy whose face we paint
So we can push that dagger
And watch his brains splatter

And imagine twas for greater good.

Tell them dread not freezing seas
If we must die and die we must
A tomb with whales swimming above
Is more serene than cities stained

And forests raped we've left behind.

So smirk behind that oak tree desk
And watch as blood stained table chess
Becomes alive and consumes the fire
Of angel saying we all must die.

Who...

"who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,"

[but before then, in midnight Silver Chair, were frightening unbearable unbared truth]

who, when tiredness and wine drew out the blood-liquid

from their capillaries-fingers

like tingled yellow crystals to prick and tear from inside

when hope withdrew like tired shells

of echoed songs of rejected thoughts

of chambers null and void and pointers

foxes pubs and drawl; "echo, fox" and public brawl

speckled truth; speckled, ken?

never return, heading town, meadow port and all the cherubim draw their unseen swords, where not even the oxen shall cross their fjords...

who indeed, will call me by my true name

or to whom can I read out the scroll,

my seeming complaint

till we have faces

till we can bear to look in the mirror

of shame tired pain and care

Name

Not in my name you cannot write
Or whine or make wine or right
The wrong suffered, my might
You cannot utter, my sight

You cannot claim, the night
Is just darkness to you, I AM,
But you are not, you are nothing but
Dust and wishful thinking in time;

And in shame.

The slight delay in exhaustion, the crime
You left late for combustion, the brine
In sea flats walked barefoot to isle
Of maybe or something or still breathing

That thing you call you, and cry in dark
You try as might, and fight in dark
You fight or flight, and run in dark, 

You, and it's always you, 

And I.

Sunday

Today I planned to leave my sins in Munich

But no hearing of confessions offered,

I will take them back with me,

Like an extra piece of luggage

Yet already I feel a bit relieved

Having heard other people's stories

In church, in the Olympic Park, in the hotel

Joyous people, victims, ordinary doers

Somehow, despite the horror of the 12

-- and, with an eye to the North West,

many more besides --

I feel a bit more human having been here today

I think of the mascot

Spitzer bought for his daughter 

Then walk the dunes in my mind

By the olympic lake

All tranquil yet reflecting

Death we all face

And evil in its wake

We all try to escape

Yet all who walked here today
Were human of the sort
Kazantsakis projected on
The Sky he tried to

Conjure in mist,  being
His own imagination
Yet providing relief
For his own doubtful belief.

So here we stand, all human

All fragile like tarps and tents

Extended in Olympic Park.

All making tbeir mark

Even if not celebs with hands

In wet clay but with prayers

Rising uphigh with hands held apart

In wet record of time.

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Shan

twas shan o’ ye tae dae that
tae mock yer tongue that’s
no for ye tae mock cos
it’s no yers, ne’er will be

how wid ye feel

ye daft ---- if ah hunt

yer kin doon

ken, yer kind and aw

Belief

What is worse:

To imagine someone exists
Or deny someone who does?
And well, does He?
We believe in Napoleon
Precisely 'cos he didn't fly
He only ravaged Europe
-- with learning, according to some --
And sent his men to die
Across fields frozen; that part,
No one seems to deny.
We believe in Julius Caesar
Because he didn't claim to heal
But he did know how to kill
-- yet also, more than his peers --
To put sword back in its sheath.
And then we have Christ
Whose life two millenia ago
Seems accepted by most
But the details of his life
And more so, what followed
Are a stumbling block.
There is authority in his speech
But miracles, by their nature
Are difficult (or impossible?) to believe.
It needs a second childhood,
A second birth.
One we hope, springs not
From stupid laughter
But His wise mirth.

( see Chesterton https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2012/09/06/his-mirth/ )

A Tale of Three Nations

In the land of Gog, Magog

None goes Nod, none runs amok

None save the many few who

Touch the Stuff of pretty blue

In the land of North and South

Nice work that bloomin plaster

Not quite happy ever after

But write it down, at least we do

In ways that only novelists do

Worlds apart we inhabit

Not quite shared but there you have it

We admit it, at least we do

In the land of East and West

A Union put to the test

Still, we look there for the best

We sing their songs, at least we do.