WAITING FOR A FLU INJECTION

.
The line of bodies
Shuffles forwards in the queue;
Some too thick, some too thin,
Some lean on sticks or on another's arm,
Just able to stand,
Their thoughts and movements slow;

Some in a wilderness of despair and confusion
Do not quite know
Where or even who they are;
Others can scarcely see,
Recognising no-one;

All are caricatures
Of what they used to be,
Clinging to their lives
With pills, injections and operations;
All have come hoping
To avoid the flu.

Was this once a lively dad,
Playing with his children?
Was this a merry little girl,
Skipping across the meadows,
As pretty as the flowers
Through which she ran?

Now gaunt and bent and staggering,
Their grey hairs thin, their energy gone,
Their bleak faces sagging:
Spiteful time has savaged their bodies,
Plundered their beauty
And destroyed their strength;

They look so frail:
Yet deep within each one,
No matter how great the damage,
Still shines the radiance of the sun;

For they are not their bodies,
But have merely used them for a while
As temporary lodging,
And soon will move on
To other worlds.

________________________________________

FRIEND

.
There is an ancient soul
Who lives with me,
And fills my home
And everywhere he goes,
With light.

His luminous spirit brightens all my days,
And helps me thread the complex maze,
Which is my path through life;

Effortlessly he does what I cannot,
Yet constantly strive to do,
Meditating motionless,
With closed or open eyes,
He gains the knowledge that makes him wise,
The wisdom every intellectual denies.

He does not read nor chatter
About ideas and things that do not matter,
Which self-styled intellectuals,
Who do not know reality,
Endlessly scatter.

And he has taught me
What I could not see:
That I should simply be;

And keep my mind and body fresh,
Not trapped in the debilitating mesh
Of my or other people's self-esteem,
Which weakens the body,
And stiffens the mind,
And destroys integrity.

He does not follow any false hero,
And lose his common sense,
Or devote his loyalty and strength
To plausible orators
Or deluded priests,
Whose probity is zero,
As most people do.

Nor does he brood about the past,
But forgives me whenever I am cross
Or foolish:
He knows my folly will not last;

And he will give me infinite trust,
Until his body turns to dust,
Though even then
He will still be near;

And we will meet again
In different circumstances,
For I know his spirit will soar
And live and love
For ever more;

He is a cog in the eternal wheel of life,
As I and all living creatures are,
And those who say he is just a dog
Know nothing.

___________________________________________







_________________

GRIEF

.
I wander on the empty shore,
And weep because she is no more
Beside me.

The beauty of the sea,
And the beauty that was she
Deride me.

For I am sad and old
And lonely,
And all my strength is gone.

________________________________

FAT

.
I saw an ugly fat man
Eating chips,
His heavy bloated belly
Sagging over his chair,
And I wondered why he ate so much:

Whether perhaps his mind was gripped
By the continuing clutch
Of weak or domineering parents,
Who had not loved him as they should,
And made him sad,
When he was a little boy,
And who stifled him still,
Although they were long dead;

Or if he had lost touch
With what a man should be,
Because dreary or distasteful work,
Or unhappy marriage
Had destroyed his natural joy,
And sapped his vitality.

Then I looked at him again,
And this time did not see
Repellent noxious fat,
But a would-be radiant soul,
Imprisoned and tormented
By unrelenting circumstances;

In a next life,
If not in this,
He would be set free
To capture the God-given glee,
Which was his birthright.

_______________________________

BBC NEWSREADER

.
When I lie in my bed at night
I try to banish from my mind,
And wash away
The items I have read that day:

The poison I have dripped
Into millions of ears,
Which is designed
To control your thoughts,
And worsen your fears,
And contaminate your lives
With the mental blight
Of the miserable news
We've concocted tonight;

There's been a train crash in Peru;
It has nothing to do with you,
And it's horrible to view,
So we'll bring you the pictures
As soon as we can
Of a dying man
And a weeping wife,
And a bloodstained boy
With his broken toy;

"You may find some of the pictures upsetting,"
We say, and we hope you do,
And that they traumatize you;
Why else will we show them?

There's been a fire in Casablanca
And on a German bus;
Someone has stabbed a child of 3;
Bur what's all that to do with us?

There's a mine disaster in Ukraine:
Look - you can see the pain,
And hear the women shrieking;
Then I knit my brow,
And shake my head,
And pretend I care about the dead;

But I have such dreams
When I go to bed,
That I wake up hearing screams,
And worry that I'm going insane,
Dwelling daily on such horrors;

I am a parasite in your brains too,
Devouring your hopes,
And poisoning you
With daily doses of despair,
The morbid sights,
The gloomy speculations,
To sap your will,
And make you ill,
And rip the fabric of your being.

It's becoming more that I can bear:
I read the so-called news,
Racked by guilt,
Ashamed of what I have to say;

My pretended calm is wilting:
I want to stop and shout,
And smash the heads
Of the smirking louts
Who write it,

Who pay themselves and me,
By levying a licence fee
On you, the victims of their cruelty;

For it is they who have the licence
To use your money
To demoralise you.

_____________________________________

Note: This poem is based on BBC news bulletins which contained the items mentioned.

THE LAST NEANDERTHAL

.
I lean upon this ancient rock,
Wounded by the jabbering men
Who tore my beautiful daughter and her lover apart,
And killed them.

They strut among the bodies of my kin
And all the rest of my folk:
All my people gone,
Their carcases bleeding into the earth;

They think I too am dead,
And soon they will be right.
Why did they slaughter us,
When there is so much space for all?

And what will they do with this beautiful Earth
Which has loved and sustained us
And given us so much joy
Since time began?

I fear what will come out of their jabbering,
Their brutishness and their toxic self-importance,
And their power of speech they are so proud of,
Which enabled them to plot together
To destroy us.

I see that in the end
The talk they are so proud of
Will give them undreamt of powers,
And lead to their undoing;

For they will spread death
To every creature
In every land
And under the sea,
Murdering wherever they go,
Even themselves;

Until they kill the very world itself,
The Earth which gave birth to both them
And us
They will trample and turn to dust;

Until they annihilate everything and everyone,
Babbling and jabbering to the end,
Till the very last man
Gibbers to himself
Amidst the smouldering ruins of the planet.

_______________________________________________

PEOPLE

.
I sit on a bench in the town,
Watching the people go by:
A girl on a bike;
An old man gazing at TV in a shop;
Above the traffic's hum
A little boy talks to his mum;
Shoppers walk up and down;

Do they know
How marvellous they are,
Minds and bodies
More wonderfully constructed
Than anything else
In all the universe,
Miracles of design and complexity,
Which even heal themselves?

So how can people ever harm one another,
Or complain about trivialities,
Or waste time?

___________________________________________