SCOTTISH LOCH ACCORDING TO A WELL-KNOWN MODERN "POET"

.
I saw a picture of a beautiful scene:
Above it was an inscription;
What did the words mean,
Strung together seemingly at random,
As if scattered by a madman,
Purporting to be a description?

Wild and beautiful the wood,
The loch was radiant and calm;
At length I understood;
The words were not intended to harm:
They spoke only of inane and self-inflicted confusion,
That transformed beauty into shapeless delusion.

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IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES

.

Young men are running through the snow:
They do not know
Where or why they go;

Or they cautiously trudge,
Thinking of home:
Each is a drudge,
Carrying a hidden burden of fear

Three thousand miles to westward
Smug incompetents in lush ministry offices,
Who sent without proper protection
Each platoon and section,
Comfortably sip their coffees;

Not for them the worry that an IED
Will throw them without warning high in the air,
Blown into bloody shrieking pieces,
Slowly floating down.

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GRANNY

.
Granny, can I have some cake?
Can we jump in a boat and row on the lake?
Granny, please for my sake;
Only for a little while will I be a child,
And have the joy of running wild;
Please do it for me and my radiant smile.

In just a few years I'll be a trial,
An adolescent with addled essence,
All moans and groans and mixed-up hormones,
Rebellious and moody, erratic and broody:
I'll have the strength to run mile after mile,
Yet sometimes my temper will be vile.

I will not know how fortunate I am:
Then as now I'll be mentally still in my pram;
How can I know that you are tired,
And worried that you may be ill,
That every illness may be your last,
That all your happy days are past?
How can I tell, when my life is so fast?

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SWANS

.
Oh dear, oh dear, the swans are here,
The wild swans from Siberia,
For they have come much earlier
Than they have done for many a year;
I'm told it foretells harsh winter chill:
The old will be cold, and many will be ill.

Dear swans, you know I love you dearly,
Your glorious song, your grace and beauty;
But darling swans, it is your duty
Not to come so very early.

Beloved swans, fly home again,
And come here later,
So that our winter weather is better,
For if you do not, I will put you in a sack;
By train or plane I will send you back:

To make our winter easier,
Stay longer in Siberia,
And grant us the boon of not returning too soon,
Or I will send you back again!

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Note: Bewick's Swans, which nest in Siberia, migrate every autumn to other countries including Britain. In 2010 many arrived 3 weeks earlier than usual. which according to folklore means a cold winter to come.

YOUTH

.
A crowd of young people
Races along the sun-soaked street,
Their lissom figures firm and light,
Laughing and frolicking in the bright summer heat.

Their passionate bodies, aflame with vitality,
Jostle one another as they run to the beach,
And splash into the tumbling sea:

Blazing with insatiable lust for life,
They yearn to release the wild energy
Exploding within them;

No cares sully their smooth and shining brows:
They think that nothing will ever destroy
Their effervescent joy,

For they have never experienced anything else;
And as they leap and bounce into each wave,
They feel that all creation is their slave.

They have no inkling that even now
Their skin is thinning and losing its glow,
That slowly their veins are beginning to show;
They do not notice,
Because it is so slow.

For they can dance all day and dance all night,
And still have strength to tussle and fight,
And exert their muscles with all their might,
And hardly tire.

They are never distraught,
Know nothing of despair;
Their swift brains dart from thought to thought;
They scarcely have a care.

Old age to them is a distant desolate planet,
Populated by tottering apparitions,
Feeble distortions of themselves,
Which they will never inhabit.

Middle age too is a world
They cannot even guess at,
Where young men now grown bald or fat,
If they try to run or have too much fun,
Will be out of breath or feel like death,
Or have a heart attack;

Where women, no longer girls,
Dress to keep their sagging bodies out of sight,
And dye their hair to disguise the white,
And many begin to wonder why they are there..

Some will try to repair their lives,
With pills or potions, diets or lotions,
Hoping they will give them back the life they have lost,
No matter the cost.

For men and women have always sought
To staunch the flow of time,
And not allow the clock of life to chime
The passing of the flaming days of youth.

Imperceptibly hour by hour,
And year after year,
Until no trace of strength nor beauty is left,
Time drains away their energy and power,
Till they are utterly bereft.

Yet in the past,
By simple ways of mindfulness and breath,
People enabled their bodies to last,
Staying healthy and delaying death,
Their youthful vigour barely less,
By absorbing the power of the universe.

Some there are who still practise and preach
The ancient wisdom,
But the charlatans who today pull the levers of our thought,
Preach derision of what for generations has been taught,
And call it superstition.

Talking nonsense, falsely saying that it contradicts science,
So they, by sneering at the truth,
Have curtailed truth,
And let in the ills of old age everywhere,
More fear and suffering than anyone should bear.

Word-inebriated fools,
Prating on radio and television,
They have mesmerised nations
Into becoming self-destructive tools,
Too brain-washed to realise
What waves upon waves of pseudo-scientific lies
Have done to them.

For most so-called scientsts are blind,
Denying even the existence of mind;
So let the rest of us arise
And strive to make strong and wise
The ailing millions they mislead and despise:
For we must spread the truths we know,
And show the radiant joy-filled path we all can go.

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ORANG-UTAN

.
I swing despairing through the trees,
Heartbroken for my baby who they took away:
No longer can she leap and play,
Loved by me, happy and free,
And filled with glee the live-long day,
Happy and hiding among the fluttering leaves,
As the branches bend and sway
In the cooling breeze.

Now my baby just sits and cries
Alone in the sweltering heat of a cage,
And cannot even see the sky;
Why, oh why did they steal her life,
And pierce her soul
With the knife of cold indifference?

Sometimes I see them as they pass below:
They do not know that I am here,
Watching how their fierce eyes glow
And burn with desire
To demolish or destroy with fire
The forest which is our home and joy,
And has been since the start of time;
Why, oh why do they commit this crime?

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PERASKIN

.
I run across the gentle down,
To reach the shining sea,
For the waters of Peraskin
Constantly call to me.

Just a little way to Westward
The baby seals play:
Their haunting voices drift across the bay.

By the waters of Peraskin
I dreamed a dream one day:

The sky above and the earth below,
And by my side the swelling sea
All joined in choral symphony,
That made the spirit in me glow,
And filled my heart with peace.

I slept; and oh, the Earth was singing
As I lay upon its breast:
Its joyful song was ringing through my rest.

I dreamt; and then I heard a different sound:
Children shrieking from their wounds,
And left alone to die.

I dreamt that tanks were grinding,
Grinding through my dream;
I heard my loved ones' voices,
Saw them start to scream.

And madmen chanted hatred
In their castle in the East,
As huge unwilling legions
Crunched their gory feast,
As doing what they knew was wrong,
They sang the tyrants' hideous song.

I woke; and only gulls were calling,
As they flew across the sky;
Their soft white wings were shining,
As they glided by.

A girl was walking on the sand,
Her sun-warmed limbs all golden,
As she ran beside the sea;
And there was only beauty
All around me.

The waters of Peraskin
In tiny wavelets roll,
And pour their gentle beauty on my soul

But a thousand miles to Eastward
The hosts of missiles wait
For the word that will destroy us,
Fuelled with hate.

By the waters of Peraskin
On that calm Western shore,
I dream my dreams no more.

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Note: this poem was written at the height of the cold war.