Twenty Nine Lost Souls

Putting these poems up takes me back to their origin, whereby several times they are comments on major news items. This one relates to that genre and deals with an incident at the height of IRA and UK tensions in 1994.

 

Twenty Nine Lost Souls

Through the murky mists of the Mull Of Kyntyre

the camouflaged chopper charges ahead

into cloud shrouded cliffs, now a funeral pyre

shatters, breaks open, disgorges its dead

of clandestine colonels and cover up cops

bent on conspiracy, subterfuge and plots.

In the battling Belfast backstreet blocks

Where suffering and bloodshed are neighbours

in tenement hide outs the IRA mocks

since this kill wasn't gained of their labours

but still they claim nature their own 'provo' might

like the Pope, religion and historic right.

In their hapless homes those numbed next of kin

watch TV news headlines so blandly advise

twenty nine lost souls now must suffer their sins

incognito, stay secret in nameless demise;

no comfort this text from high lords of the land

"for God, Queen and country", they just don’t understand.

 

 

Waxing Lyrical

Waxing Lyrical

It's dark and the moon is minimal

and everything seems so quiet,

yet I can still hear the sound

of silent footsteps in the shadows.

Now, some paranormal key unlocks

the door to my sixth sense

so I can hear the ghosts calling out to me,

making me look up to the distant heavens.

I see pin prick shining stars, each one

sending signals, waves of noise

which my brain easily decodes

with its own sixty four bit

personal, paranormal encryption key

to create an aural continuum,

a headset helmet of repetitive, mystic messages

forcing their way into my brain.

Just like sixties pop music used to do.

 

 

Words

Words

In a way I admit that’s slightly absurd

I like having my way with a noun and a verb

working with words, a real pleasure I boast

I love rich and vibrant English words most

from a long cultural heritage like silk and satin

European, British, Celtic, and extra smooth Latin.

I work with words of all kinds but better still

have a penchant for words that can roll downhill

by themselves, without excess verbosity

words that express a carefree philosophy

words that deliver acceleration and pace

with alliteration and can rhyme in time and place

words that in metre don’t peter away

even tongue tied words can really hold sway

they may struggle to start, come so slowly at first

they stutter and splutter but then with a burst

they thrust verbally forth at the top of the verse

unparalleled images from sows ear to silk purse

they gush forth and progressively gather speed

blitzing the rules of good grammar indeed

both ritzy and crass they perfect their role

even when out of syntactic control

they brazenly ignore all punctuation

leave the reader to ply their imagination

never seek to capitalise on upper case

a tradition that some feel is a waste of space

at full speed they outstrip any writer’s block

and in many a case are unable to stop

at the end of a sentence they just fall off the page

and its at this final frustrating stage

when I’ve struggled so long the right subject to find

they crash headlong into my poetic mind.

Though for hours prior myself I’ve berated

that’s how my poetry is most often created.

 

 

Hunter Green

Preamble - whilst reflecting on all things green (my favourite colour), from politics to energy production, I looked up the HTML code and name of the particular colour green I favoured. It was called Hunter Green, and it just so happens that there are many businesses featuring this name in my area. So, I factored them into my thoughts and the poem that resulted.

 

Shades of Hunter Green

Yesterday I felt that I was Hunter Green,

a most deep and meaningful shade

a solid definition of my current state of mind

my values and feelings towards this earth

and the troubles that we humans have

continually visited upon our solar satellite.

Today I will paint the terrain of Sunshine,

not literally as an artist of course

but as a Hunter Green landscaper

delivering Lake Macquarie residents with

eco balanced domestic vistas and native trees

that will help this earth continue to breathe and survive.

Tomorrow I will undertake equities research

as a Hunter Green institutional broker

delivering quality analysis to corporate investors

for whom I will also produce astounding

commentary on topical investment themes

for our monthly Cane Toad (electronic) magazine.

Next week I will start to construct my Hunter Green

sustainable home using recycled, local,

durable and non off gassing materials to reduce

waste, pollution and environmental degradation,

and match them with efficient energy and water systems

all using natural resources for both heating and light.

Next month on e-bay I will sell all manner of goods,

in that most attractive shade of Hunter Green,

from jewellery featuring nature’s rare stones

such as malachite, tourmaline and verdite

to appealing high healed dyed leather pumps

geared to those discerning buyers of fashion and style.

Then I will start to plan how I can spend my final years

of life in the Hunter Green Retirement Village

where I will reminisce on lost opportunities past

to give something back to this fragile earth

and trust there are still committed younger souls

to prolong and permeate the essence of feeling Hunter Green. 

 

 

Living In Obi City

 Living In Obi City

She was not born this unattractive,

nobody is, since personal beauty

exists as a quixotic and charismatic

statement, embracing a journey

of the mind in a private, yet public,

exposition of the totality of a series

of complex individual traits, not just

the measured proportions bare

of playboy flesh and bone,

exhibited with abandon,

TV accredited silken locks

or expensive catwalk couture.

Yet it seems she has tried her best

(or should that be her worst?) to minimise

any naturally conferred attributes

a seemingly sad, lost personality

trapped in a droopy double chin

extreme folds of flabby flesh testing

the tensile strength of Chinese polyester,

an unkempt, straggling mane

an unshielded, yawning chasm

this scowling mouth and stubby digits

struggling to text a breath of life

into her cellular support system.

And there’s the axiomatic rub,

for whilst I recognise the simplistic

flaws of appraisal by appearance,

yet I sit as judge, jury and even

now as her public executioner

I have already implicitly, inhumanly

sentenced her to the populist scrap heap,

despise her visual pollution

question her personal integrity

her ability to exist in a society

idolising its beautiful people;

so hard for her to be obese and me to be PC.

 

Eight Fifteen

 

Eight Fifteen

Its epicentre at two hundred metres above target Hiroshima’s

T shaped river bridge obliterates buildings in temperatures more

than sun hot, vaporises unsuspecting human fodder before they even hear

an explosion, creates cyclonic winds of mass destruction, crystallises

roof tiles and remnant brick, warps and distorts

massive iron bank shutters

paints perfect people shadows

on city centre flagstones

scorches garden earth

propels screeching

atomic glass shard

missiles

ripping flesh

from the lucky ones

almost out

of harm’s way

inescapable heat

blistering

bloating

bodies

invisible radiation

mutating

minds

of generations

future bred

unavoidable

museum memories

trapped

in a pocket watch

stopped

at eight fifteen

 

 

.

Bella Vista Sunset

 Bella Vista Sunset

Progressively fading fingers, once bright orange,

now subtle shades of grey dusk light,

gently fondle the low lying, nimbus rain clouds

final floating remnants of an earlier storm,

still lazily dispersing in an autumn auburn setting sun

that slowly slips in surrender across the narrow crack

twixt the cloud base and those mountains hazy blue.

These sky born tints mimic the ever rising shadows,

whose sterile shards of silent darkness

steadily swarm from a cooling earth,

to scale thick trunks and embrace tightly

and totally the tall stand of Sydney Blue Gum,

ah yes, eucalyptus saligna,

nature’s own indigenous serene statues,

proudly profiling the ridge on the near horizon

against that ephemeral ginger backcloth,

sentinels guarding the suburban tranquillity

of this historic Bella Vista Farm.

 

 

The Story In Their Eyes

 The Story in Their Eyes

Eyes narrowing, narrating the evidence

Eyes eloquent in judicial assessment

Eyes, momentarily closing, judging the truth

Eyes, openly evil, laughing at tormented victims, their

Eyes lowered tearfully in distress

Eyes blue and eyes brown

Eyes that do not see beyond cleric closed boundaries

Eyes electronic that tell the whole world

Eyes replete with hate that meet

Eyes terrorised that seek revenge

Eyes translating what language cannot convey

Sadness and tragedy seen through the eyes of others.