I want my country back

Hi all, it’s been a while!   So much has happened but I’m just here to drop off a poem before it disappears into the ether forever!   I was inspired to write this poem at the time of the Brexit referendum (i.e. the day my faith in my country received a fatal wounding), but feel if anything it’s got more relevant.   Here’s my pre-amble at the time of writing and the poem!   Enjoy!

Here’s a poem I was inspired to write following the outcome of the European Union Referendum. This is not intended as a slight against people voting Brexit some of which have some thoughtful considered arguments for making their decisions (for what it’s worth I think you’re wrong, but I respect your opinion), but more reflects my concern about how my much loved country of birth seems to have been divided, poisoned to with populist nationalist rhetroic and seemingly given into its worst most prejudiced instincts as a result of the EU referendum.

An old man’s on the pulpit,
“I want my country back” he cries.
“The’re terr’rists at our borders
Come to take our jobs”, he lies,
“This red safety tape ‘as took its toll
It’s time for us to take back control”!
“I want my country back” the crowd reply.

The Sun shouts in the morning;
“I want my country back” the line.
A prolix Aryan salutes,
And declares that “now’s our time”
And calls on you to follow your heart
That you are a people set apart;
“I want my country back” he cries.

A bus Leaves with a slogan:
“I want my country back” it cries.
The people follow, march in herds,
Wolves in establishment ties.
Empty pledges with bold dialogue
Are all need matter for a demagogue;
“I want my country back” will suffice.

A voice believed we’d stand for more…
Is shot and stabbed then dies.
The murderer’s asked to state his name,
“Death to traitors” his reply.
Her lost children watch their future wronged;
Where is the safe world where they belonged?
“I want my country back” they cry…

At the bottom of the well

Welcome back for another dose of poesy!   Unfortunately, I’m taking a little break after this week’s entry to relax on holiday so I won’t be uploading any more poetry until three weeks into the future (i.e. probably the 25th July).   So to round off before going away I thought I’d write up a poem that I wrote which was inspired by the story of someone I know.   In a nutshell, it’s essentially about plumbing the depths in life and the power of simple faith in aiding the slow road to recovery.   I’ll leave you to figure out the rest and hope it’s well written enough as I’m fairly tired today after giving a talk at a conference today!   Will post again at the end of the month, but have a great July in the meantime.

The Well

At the bottom of a well
There’s too much to drink
But nothing to quench thirst.
What caused the descent into darkness?
Boredom?   Anxiety?
The desire to drown the increasing distance
From daylight?
Hard rock and stale roll for approval
Win only the highs of a rollercoaster
Before its inevitable plummet into this pit –
Brain smashed.   Body wrecked.

Yet a bucket of living water reaches
Even into this abyss –
A word you couldn’t read
But saw and heard
And clung to pulled you up
And is still raising…
The chasm slowly shrinking further into the past
There is a simple truth you hold tight,
Meditate on:
A book called “Life”, a promise
That one day you will see the sun.

Writing about Writer’s Block

Towards the end of the poetry challenge during Lent there were a lot of set poems that I felt compelled to try and complete, so as a result I often felt a little bit stuck with how best to express the grand sentiment that I felt with any given idea (for instance, the Poems for days 36 and 37 were immensely difficult to write).   I struggled through in the end thanks to some late nights, but for some reason I never had any trouble writing a few lines about how uninspired I felt!   As I have been a bit busy to work on any larger projects this week, I decided to write a few of those lines generated up in pithy poem form.   Hope you enjoy and see you next week!

Writer’s Block

Where once I had so many seeds,
Now can only lament
An absence of expressive life;
Apathetic discontent.

Just mud where ideas there should be,
No shoots or starts to find,
An exercise for doodling hands
And no more for my mind,

For oaks of old work overbears,
Shading inspiration;
No ray is ever bright enough
To sear intimidation,

And many beautiful gardens rise,
Competing colours loud;
I fear my strivings to be heard’s
Futility in a crowd.

Though arms wait to work the soil
My brain just grows dry rot;
I want to craft more beauty but
I’m out of plants to pot.

Going Deeper Underground…

If you followed my poetry challenge then you will know that I tend to enjoy writing about my commute, so it should come as no surprise that I’ve written another poem on the subject!   In this poem I really wanted to capture the feeling of pulling into a station and seeing all the people waiting rush past.   I also wanted to touch on, as before, the feeling of everyone joining together in the fact that we’re all on our way to somewhere though we have different stories and come from different places.   Hope you enjoy – will return with a new poem written up next week.   Best wishes!

The Tube pulls into Kings Cross St Pancras

Light.
Grey shapes
Tessellate,
Figures blur by:
A man and a dog,
A couple embracing,
A teen adjusting glasses,
A suited man checking his wrist,
A young fair woman reading a book,
Five Chinese tourists scouring a tube map,
A bald elderly man leaning on a stick,
A black frowning mother, worn hands holding two sons,
Shuffling them along as the platform jerks to a stop.
The doors open to all.

The Band that Binds

The weekly poem fix is here!   I decided that a cynical poem was well overdue, so I decided to write up a poem which was written originally as an alternative partner poem to Ring (https://thegreatsaundini.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/40-poems-in-40-days-part-30/) in the poetry challenge in case I felt unhappy about how Marriage Binding turned out (it’s actual partner poem).   I’ve been resistant to publish it, because I am always loath to write too much that’s negative (I don’t want this blog to become some kind of agony aunt), but I wanted to put it up at some point and decided that it had probably been long enough since my last angsty one.   For interpretation, it’s pretty much the same as Marriage Binding (see: https://thegreatsaundini.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/40-poems-in-40-days-part-31/), namely that there is a cost to marriage that is especially noticeable when it goes awry.   Hopefully, if the poem’s written well, the rest can be figured out!   I’m probably going to try and write another positive sister poem to this one, because I am actually a big believer and lover of marriage in spite of my negativity in this poem.   Anyway, hope this satiates your poetry fix for now – join me next week for another poem!

The Band that Binds

Those heady days of youth, hands free
When wond’rings were only of me,
Life was a garden, fresh, exciting,
Before love struck my soul like lightning –

A sweet fruit hung before my eyes,
Bitter juices by red disguised,
Enchanted, it kissed to betray,
A forked tongue vowed my life away –

A band played, on that bawling day,
An independence elegy.
A ring forced on with a fidget
Now suffocates my dumb digit.

My body, no more for my use,
My dreams a pris’ner to abuse,
To wait and labour I’m now cursed,
The path from Eden now’s desert –

There’s no returning, my fate’s cast,
Even when I’ve exhaled my last,
Whilst I decay and have no thoughts,
The band will still bind my dried corpse.

The gods of global warming are angry!

Hi everyone.   Another week and another poem from my scribble book (largely penned after the 40 days challenge) and today’s one focuses on a pet peeve; the superstitious attribution of weather as being abnormal (i.e. saying everything in weather is caused by global warming).   Now, I want to start by saying that I am not a climate change sceptic by any means whatsoever (read https://thegreatsaundini.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/a-warming-warning-or-why-the-world-is-doomed/ and https://thegreatsaundini.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/40-poems-in-40-days-part-21/, if you don’t believe me) and believe the evidence that global temperatures as well as carbon dioxide levels are increasing and that it represents a massive problem for the future of human-kind.   However, I find it incredibly irritating that in Britain, where weather, to my knowledge, has always been incredibly erratic but always mild, many automatically turn to climate change to explain any current passing weather phenomenon.   In my lifetime alone, I have seen weather that is too hot, too cold, to wet, too dry and too mild (anyone remember those days with really hot summers?) all attributed to global warming.   Hopefully you see where I’m going with this – it’s a Catch-22; there is no type of weather normal enough to ever disprove the notion that global warming is affecting weather in our country at any given moment!   Whatever weather occurs, a large proportion of people will attribute it to global warming.   I can’t help but draw a parallel with our ancient ancestors that attributed unfavourable weather patterns to angry gods.   The next obvious step was to ask why the gods were angry and the obvious answer was because they made them angry and that they had to change their ways in order to change their circumstances.   In one logical step they transformed something totally out of their control into a neat little box in which they had an illusory sense of control over their own destiny.   It’s difficult not to wonder how much our own struggles with weather match this narrative.   However, whilst there exists the probability that we can do something to alter our future, then we have to keep hope.   However, the irrational and unscientific attribution of undesirable weather patterns (that are probably within the bounds of statistical normality) to climate change in a country that has a long history of comparatively stable weather is not doing anyone any favours – in fact I think it is actually converting a lot of people into climate change deniers and this is the last thing we need in a world where we all need to be pulling together to cut down emissions.   My view is, to be credible, we have to be scientific about and assert that climate change is occuring through basing hypotheses on evidence (such as the expanding Sahara, melting ice caps or rising global temperatures) rather than gut feeling and speculation.   Anyway, enough ranting – (that was almost like one of my old rambly blogs!) -this was the background inspiring today’s (rather simple) poem, so hope you enjoy it.   Feel free to discuss by commenting below whether you agree or disagree with me!   Until next week.

The gods are angry

Britain’s in drought we pray for rain
The gods are angry
Now there’s flooding we plead again
The gods are angry

Unseasonable cold freezes feet
The gods are angry
And now skin burns in scorching heat
The gods are angry

And when was the last tempest clash?
The gods are waking
Lightning flashes then thunder crash
And we are shaking

The unnatural wind brings too much chill
The gods are displeased
And now the air’s suspiciously still
They must be appeased

Was there this much snow before?
We lose sense through fear
What is normal anymore?
Our reckoning’s here

Lyrics to the Main Theme of Game of Thrones

I’m really enjoying the Songs of Fire and Ice books by George R. R. Martin (I’m in the middle of Feast for Crows so please don’t write any spoiler comments!) – I love how they evoke such a full and complex believable world full with values unashamedly different to our own.   I quite like the TV show too, although the quantity of sex scenes seem overly gratuitous and unnecessary, most of the time, seemingly there to info-dump in a digestible way (my brother calls it “sexposition” – see exposition).   I do love the way that the show brings so many places from the book to life though, in addition to the epic theme music (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7L2PVdrb_8).   When I did a bit of investigation, however, I discovered that surprisingly there are no official lyrics to it, so I thought why not write my own?   There have been some other attempts, but most have been fairly unimaginative and full of swearing (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25KABvPbq-U, although not if you’re a youngster – there are a lot of F-bombs!).   This one was a better effort, though generally intended to be silly (also plenty of swearing in this one too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Ytxlvt_J8).   This one by Karliene Reynolds was the best effort I came across (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAsCt4GF6WU) – it’s clever and poetic, but it’s more of a separate song inspired by the main theme rather than lyrics to it.   I decided to try and go for something in between these two extremes – lyrics that tangibly went with the main theme whilst still evoking themes from the book.   Below is my effort – feel free to offer suggestions for improvement (again, no spoilers!).

Game of Thrones

Winter is coming growls
The House Stark.
Wights creep towards the Wall
In the dark.

Stags fight, krakens rise and
Lions roar
Fight for an iron chair,
Forged by war.

Dragons dance and dream of
Lands once roamed,
Vict’ry in the Game of Thrones.

Free your third eye,
Will you make it home?
You win or die
When you play the Game of Thrones.

A Poem about my Hand

So, it’s another week and I’ve had a go at trying to polish one of the poems I’d drafted into a form I’m happy with.   Today’s poem was inspired by a mental snapshot that I made in my memory when I was small.   I remember looking at my hand whilst sitting on the school field and admiring how young it looked and tracing the lines on it – since then that moment has become a sort of marker of time for me.   I sometimes take moments to look at my hand and remember back to that earlier occasion when I was about 6 or 7, noticing how they’ve grown in size, become rougher and gained a few extra lines.   I decided that I’d try and capture this sense of time moving whilst just looking at a single object (obviously my own hand in this case) and the below is the result, so enjoy!   One last thing: just in case you’re not a follower (feel free to become one by clicking a link somewhere on this page to get e-mail updates) and check this page periodically, I’ve decided to post on Thursdays instead of Tuesdays now because it fits in with my life better!   Am besten!

My Hand

I stare
At my hand
It’s contours sprouting in
Fresh spring air
I blink

I look again
Gangly, grown awkward now
Too embarrassed to open fully
New lines being learned
A budding flower

Summer has started now
I admire my sunlit palm
Attractive, strong and in life’s prime
Strength to carry the future
Fit for the harvest

The sky’s greyed
And leaves are falling
I toil in fading sunlight
Work wears leathery digits
Past ripeness

I squint
My hand’s blurry
But it feels shrivelled
I grow cold
Must rest

Cine-Film

Yesterday was my mum’s Birthday, so I decided to try and write a poem in her honour in the last week and finished it late on Tuesday evening.   However, I didn’t have any time to put it up yesterday evening, so am doing so today instead!   I was inspired to write today’s poem after watching an old cine-film (basically a silent home video see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cine_film), which has been converted to DVD, last weekend, which contained scenes of my mum as a girl and later her wedding day marrying my dad.   I guess whilst watching, it suddenly struck me that my mum was a person and had a life before I was born!   Now I know that that’s obvious and of course I already knew this in my head, but I’ve always experienced my relationship with my mum in a particular way.   I guess as a child I’ve enjoyed such a close relationship with my mum that it’s difficult to imagine her not being a mother, without her caring altruism, her self-sacrificial slaving after me as a child (and still today to a lesser extent!) and her constant worrying about me on my behalf!   In a sense, the film is a window to another world – another side of someone who I feel I know and love so well and yet am so displaced from their past.   I would write even more about today’s poem, but I’m really tired and don’t feel like doing any more than I need to!   Feel free to comment below or ask questions (in fact, I would be really happy and feel more popular if you did so)!   See you next week.

Cine-film

A muted picture rolls out of the screen
And we gaze into a flickering sunlit sixties street.
Her face wearing a familiar caring weariness,
Your mum pushes a juttering daisy pushchair
Holding your toddlerish brother,
An auburn bowl on his head,
Your sister’s long young yellow wisps shuffling beside,
And there you are!   Seen, but not heard,
Chestnut haired and boyish in blue coat
Balancing playfully, noiselessly counting steps on a scrambled wall –

A sudden shift in time and space –
The sun filtered by a sunglass nostalgic hue
Shines on a soundless seaside family scene.
Your mum rests peacefully in the middle
Soaking up revitalising rays;
Her kids ignoring her busily
Burying body parts in the sand.
Your image sits with stringy limbs,
Hair blowing carelessly in the air
Not cooking in the sun
Simply staring ahead and listening to silence
Perhaps, like now, contemplating the past –

The scene switches again –
A landscape of rolling dreamy green mounds under a blue sky,
Down a steep hill quiet quaint country houses,
Flanking a small empty road like a silver stream,
It’s source behind: a worn anecdotal stony church.
Dad, so young, hair like the fifth Beatle,
Emerges from the rustic doorway in full morning suit,
Leading you, a woman now in simple white dress, by the hand.
He mouths something unintelligible to us with ecstatic grin
And takes you to a grey wall
Guests following out behind
Led by little cousin Katie,
Bobbling behind with a cute bouquet.
You pose together for a photo, a portrait,
Gazing forwards into the camera with excitement
Through the screen and into your future
To a part of you not even born yet.

A Second Riddle

Well, it’s one week on and I’m still recovering from the virus I had last week!   As a result I’m still not at my most inspired, but I did have a slightly feverish inspiration for a riddle in a dream this week, so bon appetit!   Will be back next week, hopefully at 100% and a new poem.   Until next time.

????

On its own it’s nonsense,
But a question gives it meaning.
It does not move,
Yet is difficult to find.
It does not change,
But can be difficult to recognise.
You can’t eat it,
Yet it satisfies a hunger.
It’s in no drink,
But add salt and you get the word.