I Knew Him Well

I knew him well, you see

the heart of him

the soul of him

the man

his gentleness

his kindness

his actions

bywords of the whole

no one except perhaps

the cruel or one broken

could have accused so

falsely, sent him into

purgatory, there to

await condemnation

or vindication while

we prayed, kept the faith

in truth, in justice and

in him, his voice broken

in forgiveness even while

understanding incomplete

as ours, knowing only that

these things are sent

to try us

he was

is not

never was

found wanting

I knew him well, you see

his heart

his soul

the man

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In Season For A Reason

there’s a voice and a reason and a reason for the season  and the season may very well be now and it’s calling and they’re shouting and the shouting’s growing louder and it’s asking when and where and how

and it’s shouting and it’s crying and the proof is in the people and the people are asking why and why and why, can you hear it, can you feel it, do you know it  when you see it, can you feel it surging, voices do not lie,

they’re asking and i’m asking and we’re wondering and demanding and it’s growing by the minute, by the hour and it’s here and it’s there and it’s tweeting everywhere and folk around are fed up by the same old choir

for they sing the song of death and destruction and disaster and they try oh, how they try to fill our hearts with fear, but hearts and minds have reason and the reason and the season is asking, really? armageddon near?

what of love and truth and the knowledge born of youth, the undisturbed, the uncorrupted view, the simple and straightforward and, yes, the basic facts, that, where they argue, honesty is lacked

our educated young and the chorus raised against the same old, tired old, oh, so very, very old, repeated verse, is a fallacy, delusion, determined on confusion, keep them separated, subjugated, worse,

let them all believe that difference is abhorrent, that mothers, fathers, children, all and everywhere, are somehow out of sync, with all nature, all we need, all we ask for, how we feed, shall we really let them bring us to the brink

there’s a reason and a season and the season may be now and the reason is catching up to lies and, god, I hope it’s true that what we read and do may avert the worst of all, we, all, must most despise

 

I don’t really ‘do’ Twitter or Facebook although my posts go to both. I’d forgotten how engaged, politically, both are, especially considering my experience of both during the Scottish Referendum campaign. I’ve been negligent. There are so many voices out there speaking for causes that unite people, people just being people, doing what they’re best at. Yeah, there are some total planks. You get that everywhere. But, there are so many Joes and Janes out there, just being human and caring, that I’ve been humbled tonight to be part of their thoughts and arguments.

I’m promising myself that I’ll get back to the level of engagement that I was involved in during the Referendum, that I’ll listen to the pros and cons and follow the links  –  so many of which I could never find on my own.

I don’t know if I’ll manage it – time always being the enemy of intention – but I’ll certainly try.

There’s a reason, I believe, for the existence of these forums at this time – this season of so much unrest and dissatisfaction with what passes for governance worldwide. 

I’m rarely in fashion but I do tend to follow what appeals to my sense of justice and integrity. I find these voices here on WP. I’d forgotten that social media actually has a lot to be said for itself – if you can ignore the bits that don’t appeal.

I’d urge anyone whose interested in what’s going on in the world to do what I have neglected to do for some time. Re-engage. This is the season. And there is a reason. I have no doubt of that after tonight.

Maiden Of Mercy – a sailor’s tale

Here, where highlighted, the troubles we met,

Long ago, on a ship, far at sea,

Sights that we saw, I’ll never forget,

Comrades, our captain and me.

Winds that grew howling as high as our ship,

Plumbing the depths of our fears,

Submerging the bravest, resisting prayer lips,

Drowning the best of our tears.

Drenched, we stood stalwart, shackled to posts,

To masts, to each other, comrades,

Afeared of the moment all lives would be lost,

No aid despite mayday relayed.

How to fight gods too intent on destruct,

Neptune unleashed, three tined strong,

Maritime fellows, down on their luck,

Awondering how they had done wrong.

Dimmed came the voice on the surge of first wave,

Agrowing as storm mustered force,

All hope relinquished, none left to save,

Shared thought as we fought to keep course.

No hope was left in purser’s aplomb,

All stores to sea bottom had fled,

Blessed we ourselves, each other and home,

Destined for our final bed,

When out from the waves, against father’s rage,

Came the daughter of merman with cause,

Voice of an angel, persuaded, assuaged,

Pled, melody saw storm pause.

A hush on the wind, the ebb and the flow,

Two voices, for mercy, justice,

Abated, we waited, storm clouds still in tow

Then sound of salvation, a kiss.

Whatever she said we might never know,

Best guess is she loved one, she loved all,

No stoppage to find out, we started to row,

Relieved enraged storm was mere squall.

Here, where highlighted, the troubles we met,

Long ago, on a ship, far at sea,

Captain and comrades might still be lost yet

If not for mermaid who loved me.

Still her voice carries, I carry it close

In water and waves, on sea breeze,

Together we both, but for storm that arose,

God judged but heard daughter’s pleas.

Maiden of mercy saw one, she saw all,

Lifted refrain to save love,

Thankful our passage to angelic peace call,

Thanked we, blessed north star above.

 

Extreme Measures

Having just finished watching a programme on the effects of austerity on some of the most vulnerable people in my country I have come to a new understanding of why people resort to extreme measures to counter injustice.

While corporate tax evaders, banks and corrupt politicians elude justice, the penalties and sanctions imposed for minor infractions of the benefits system – being late for an appointment! – hit to the stomachs of children, leave households without electricity or gas and force the sale of personal possessions to survive. Decisions on appeal drag on for months while poverty is compounded with mounting debt at the hands of franchises lending at exorbitant interest rates.

The divide is growing. It does not surprise me in the least that the people of Scotland are supporting in droves a political party that promises to do everything in its power to counter austerity measures imposed by policies this government and previous ones have forced on its citizens while doing nothing to address the real criminals in the crisis that has plagued the UK. A party that represents the only real social party left to offer any effective resistance to the suits that look out for each other.

The haves do what they like while the have-nots have ever less under a regime that would make any dictator proud.

Fuck austerity. I teach children whose lives ARE this programme.

Some will go to Jamaica and Tenerife for their Easter holidays. Some will wonder if they eat. The divide is in my classroom. The evidence of the divide is on my TV, in my newspapers, on blogs I read, in the untruths perpetuated in news and programmes that make criminals of victims while allowing the real criminals to continue on their course of profit at any cost.

I am not a member of any political party at the moment. I am a member of the human race and the day I can’t empathise with my fellow man – most specifically, the children – is the day I will vote for Tories or the now recognised Red Tories, hitherto known as the Labour Party.

If there is anyone who reads this who may ‘fear the onslaught of the SNP’, ‘the tartan terrors’ or whatever other name is being used to denigrate that party, if anyone believes that all who vote for them are only interested in ‘splitting the union’ think again.

The real reason SNP are gaining in popularity is because they are the main party in Scotland to represent what Labour have abandoned.

They actually give a shit which is more than can be said for many in the previous duopoly. They have my vote. Not for being extreme- they’re not extreme enough for me. But right at this moment they are the best option the whole of the UK has to redress the balance by at least offering some resistance to what is currently a crime being allowed to run rampage.

Austerity is a crime against children and families. And I will not stand for it.

Extreme doesn’t begin to describe what I feel after watching this programme.

Yes, I understand better why people take drastic actions to counter injustice.

Mine will be within the letter of the law. But some laws need changing. Soon. Very, very soon.

Legacy

It’s okay to steal the flame and run

From gods, a-hunting down audacious

Mercy given, gift of heaven,

It’s okay.

It’s alright to burn your fingers,

Singe a little, give a little, carry some

To others colder, further back from fire,

It’s alright.

It’s fine, I think, to bend the rules, apply

Some tender leniency, pretender to immutable,

Withstanding all is fair in love and war, they say,

It’s fine.

Who will be Prometheus, provoke with daring,

Chased by thunder, run the gauntlet,

Be the warrior who casts the dice where risk and life

Are prize, those lives unknown,

Emblematic titan, punished, ridiculed, symbolic,

Messianic martyr for the mass,

Where carried torch, ignited gift, though stolen,

Given too, the drive a greater need to give

Than to survive.

It’s okay, alright, it’s fine to steal

The spark bequeathed.

With forethought,

Feed and favour,

Fan,

Now keep it lit,

This legacy.

 

Ha Ha! Different Strokes

Rise to conquer mighty when such fallen

Bequeath a legacy disdained by all,

Promulgations errant, contemptuous,

While vilifying poorest when they fall,

Guilty of a sin so much the greater

For in greed they measure parity of law,

Where need may criminalise the latter

Connections in the city favour flawed.

Austerity of measures, quoth the parties

While other parties play, committing fouls,

Running rings around the bastions,

A nod, a wink, their penalty, these fowls

Flock together, party on, still launder,

Evade their dues, know their system well,

Blame populace and global economics,

The graphics prove where guilty dwell.

One for all, if mitigation,

Let it be because compassion speaks,

Recognisant, sometimes valid reasons,

Current practice serves the corporate not the weak.

Tax Evasion versus Benefit Fraud

Different laws for different people,

Different strokes for different folks,

Loaded dice in this monopoly

Get out of jail free card – see the joke?

 

Lip Service

Mists linger on the corners of the city where he lived,

Rolling in and round and clinging on,

Legacy of fog where Wilde was wont to drift,

Swirling still though lighter in its form.

Name and shame, the fashion, presented on a plate

Indecency, too gross for social graces,

Law, though now repealed, belies the want of hate.

Clear the names, no blame upon their faces.

 

Change.org

 

 

Ripple On Our Radius

In vast countries where a billion different voices

Murmur in their work and mull in thought

Are the seeds of revolution because choices

Lack the freedom, doing what we ought.

In the stitching of the garments and the ploughing

Fields we furrow for vague greater good

There are questions as we bow our heads to tasking

Asking if we’re doing all we should

To be the one, the only one, we’re born to,

To realise the goals, the greater aims,

To be the actions that may speak because we owe to

Selves and world, justice in our names.

In the factories and countries wide where souls ache,

Trammeled while we’re working for the man,

Eked existence slowly lived while hearts break,

Years swiftly bypass doing, as we think, the best we can.

In the motion of the moon and yearly tidings

Howls inside are rising, seeking sky,

Portents of a future, bands of wildness,

Growling in the question, why me, why.

Dare we risk, in idle speculation,

The what ifs, should I’s, didn’ts, not my job,

Plodding on, a controlled automation,

While frustrations muster, gathering in mob.

Can we be the changes in our lifetime,

The only voice we’re given for a while,

Can we work and think, still being active,

Ripple on a radius within our mile. 

Behold The Woman

In the endless years of waiting and the watching

She deemed that shadow length must soon diminish,

That patience and quaint ethical endeavour

Would forestall gloom, reverse the trends and finish

The weary task of sentinel to living,

Abhorrence to the task, so bleak, in hand,

To reap the harvest of the ghouls untethered,

Slaughterhouse to wicked in the land.

Apparent cloak of grey and cowled hood,

A swish of semi-darkness in the night,

Double-edged the scythe to strangulating outgrowth

Whose vindictiveness and cruelty served to fright.

Thus it was the temptress became woman,

Woman tempered, raged with blood red eyes,

Reaper to the violators, this her charging,

Stalked she now mid murderers and lies.

A potent sort of woman with a mission,

Stilled in womb, cut open for the lives,

Challenger to death by haughty ingress,

Harbinger of justice to despised.

Avenger of the children, every mother,

Every father, every soul who seeks the light,

Partaker of the flesh of idle flavour,

Vampire to the wraiths of soulless sight.

Suckled on the teat of terror driven

By hardness, hubris, hierarchies and hell,

Behold the woman, Mother Earth, anew created,

Anointed in the bowels of ne’erdowell.

Reservoirs

In the pen,

reservoirs of blood and reason,

sheathed the sword,

woven, covert shroud and hate-paled mask,

Fight the fight

with the ink that flows, risks treason,

drips and drops of love

from reservoirs to task.

Turn the tides

as moonbeams in the ether

on golden pond a liquid glow

from crimson ink,

Reverse the falls,

fill channels, churn the waters,

from reservoirs of pens 

filled to the brink.