INTO THE ABYSS...
"Continue to contaminate your bed,
and you will one night suffocate in your own waste" CHIEF SEATHL, 1855
The Earth is not for the taking.
We custodians have become combatants,
waging war on our own homeland;
our gardens are battlefields,
our Final Solution
to create a species of martyrs
in a Holocaust of our own making.
We are willing attendants at our own funeral;
the dense and toxic skies, our useless shroud,
the forests our nails in a coffin of fate,
the poisoned waters, our global burial at sea,
the dying soil, a gaping grave for humanity.
Christ the Carpenter could have made his own cross;
so too do we crucify ourselves
on a million Calvaries,
burned raw by an ozone depleted sun,
stripped clean by sheets of acid rain.
Blinded by the light
of our own potential wisdom,
like human lemmings
we hurtle over the edge,
racing each other into the abyss,
as if welcoming a never ending night.
AN ESSENCE OF SOMETHING OR OTHER
Where?
Where the shadows are racing to smother the grassy hills,
Where the waters have filled the souls of the thirsty few,
Where the golden eagle is floating on sunlit wings,
Where the velvet cat of black is taking my trail.
How?
How the colours of all we see are painting the sky,
How the crimson leaf that's falling lands in my hand,
How the crowds of followers merge into one single thought,
How the rain is cleansing the window of my mind.
Who?
Who the wise ones showed me, would laugh then fall over the edge,
Who, the teacher taught me, would learn even less than they know,
Who, the soldier warned me, would sharpen their knives in the night,
Who, the lunatic told me, would question my madness with fire.
Why?
Why the hands of time are pushing our lives too fast,
Why the dam that bursts has burst in front of me,
Why the man of peace is set upon by the wolves,
Why the painted clown cries louder than he laughs,
Why the poet screams despair at his empty page,
Why the thinker's lightning mind is dead as stone,
Why the preacher crosses fingers every day,
Why the runner's shadow sets the fastest pace,
Why the strongest of them all may fall the first,
Why the wanderer never looks where he has gone,
Why the singer will never begin the end of her song,
Why the struggling actor plays his death in his life,
Why the teller of tales is himself the part of a tale,
Why the sculptor has chiselled away till nothing is left,
Why the maker of music plays to the beat of his pulse,
Why the dreamer never wakes until the night,
Why the hunger we shared grew worse the more that we ate,
Why the things that we love are merged with the things that we hate.
Why?
PAPER TOKENS
The United States government signed approximately 370 treaties
with the native nations of North America.....
and broke every one of them.
They came upon your land
Unbowed,
Disregarding its ancient beauty,
As if signing up real estate
to fill their bloody coffers.
They used fair means or foul - mostly foul.
They used spirits to kill the spirit.
They used empty promises of plenty.
They used disease to strike down the pure.
They used their all-mighty God -
who turned away in disgust.
This solemn pledge would last
"so long as the grass shall grow
and the rivers run"
So they tore up the land
and poisoned the waters,
and broke their word
with conscience clear.
The treaties remain as paper tokens
of bureaucrats cheap by the double talk.
Innocent chiefs and elders, their names
marked with a hesitant 'X',
signed, sealed and delivered
with an unknowing kiss of death.
"Honest Injun" the saying goes.
These cruel perversions are given life
with every jibe and knowing grin.
Doubly ironic then
for the perpetrators used deceit as a gun
to shoot down the honest
for whom the West was lost -
not won.
CHIVINGTON'S HELL
In November 1864 a Colorado militia led by Colonel Chivington,
an ex-Methodist minister, stormed a peaceful Cheyenne camp,
butchered most of its inhabitants and mutilated the bodies.
One day, John Chivington,
Methodist Minister of Massacres,
nitpicker of Cheyenne children
and the Good Lord's ethnic cleanser,
(finally) died.
Certain of his rightful place in Paradise,
he approaches gleaming gates of pearl,
ready to embolden the travesty of his life
with tales of valorous deeds
and distant echoes
of rapturous applause from Denver.
Then, in the midst of false piety,
his cold heart stops a beat
as he discerns St Peter's silvery braids
and skin burned by countless summers.
An owl's feather lands at Chivington's feet.
There's a scent of sage -
and the smell of doom.
Like the cutting slash of a sabre,
Chivington is hit full in the face
by his life's lie
and death's truth -
God is red.
CUSTER’S LUCK
When you reached the top of the hill,
did it fill your boyish heart with dread,
bearing witness to an ocean of tipis?
Or were you riding the crest of a wave,
to break upon a beckoning House of White?
When your horses charged into the fast waters
of the Little Big Horn, now blue, soon crimson,
did you dream of Washita victories,
(when the hearts of Cheyenne women were on the ground)
cutting into nations like a scythe through wheat?
When the frenzied horde of savage renegades
turned you, out-flanked you, fought and fired as one,
did you look death in the eye and laugh?
Or were you gripped by a gut-wrenching fear
so palpable, it chilled your Was’ichu blood?
When you lay in the dirt, torn, pierced and gunshot,
amidst clouds of arrows, smoke, whoops and wails,
did you hear Libby crying for her Boy General,
see your Manifest Destiny crumble to dust,
know then that Custer’s Luck finally ran out on Indian land?
THE END OF DAYS
rocks fall helplessly to their ruin like rain
trees swing and sway like dervishes on speed
mountains shift, no longer locked in time
oceans rise and fall in crazy waves
icicles form then die in a hiss of steam
deserts creep over vestiges of green -
this is the end of days
a polar bear claws at the melting ice then sinks
an elephant finds despair at a dried out lake
gorillas flee from Men with empty guts,
hedgehogs bearing young are struck by frost
dolphins drown to struggle out of nets
winter hares are targets lacking snow -
this is the end of days
Amazon Indians stripped of all they know
Arctic peoples cast their homes adrift
hunters turning beggars lacking prey
gatherers gathering dead things every day -
villagers swallowed by waters mountain high
while others scratch the dirt as dry as bone
is this the end of days?
THE CALL OF FARAWAY PLACES
The storm grows,
gathering pace and momentum,
electrifying abstract fallacies,
a score of lightning daydreams....
chasing ghosts in mirror visions of myself
closing the javelined gates of tigered steel
telling strange stories of silver mine scenes
writing puerile sagas for juvenile fantasies
fishing for fallen angels in murky waters
flying skies torn in their own misconception
talking of armchair idealists lost in their words
dreaming scenes of breaking placid ponds
catching damaged butterflies in borrowed nets
falling into the nostalgia of the moment
stealing souls in the fruitless name of love
walking fields fragmented by whispering green
praising poets trapped behind whitewashed walls
sailing oceans washed in deepest creation
killing trees cut to the heart of the earth
splitting seals forged in useless fury
guiding happy fools to the glistening railway line
painting wishful thoughts on battleship grey
cutting swathes amidst the refugee trail
burning shells in a history cave
The storm breaks
and ends the visual game,
as I'm filling in time
till the next metamorphosis of light.......
BLACK LOVE WOMAN
my sad
black love woman;
cool beauty,
diamond raw,
an eternity of want,
aching wind,
whispered shadow,
bare garden of still winter,
lazy moon,
sleeping sun,
storms of time
in a sea of dreams.
FUEL INJECTION DRIVER
In the motorways and side roads,
in the back streets after hours,
with my two point eight of lager
and my engine built for power,
I'm a fuel injection driver
and the sober I devour.
In the "Rose & Crown" I'm swimming
in the laughter and the beer,
my best mate gets another round,
I'm getting into gear.
I'm a fuel injection driver,
I'm a speeding buccaneer.
The last bell tolls its warning,
but my car keys won't stay still;
I've drunk my fill of four star
and I'm tanked up to the gills.
I'm a fuel injection driver
and the driving's all downhill.
The back seat boys are cheering
as I shift to overload,
and my head is spinning faster
than the wheels upon the road.
I'm a fuel injection driver
and I've burned the Highway Code.
I'm moving like a bullet
as I race to overtake
and my eyes are getting blurry
and my feet can't find the brake,
but I'm a fuel injection driver
and I never make mistakes.
They robbed me of my licence,
they stole a whole month's pay,
and just because I had a drink
and took a life away,
but I'm a fuel injection driver -
and I don't care what they say.
LISTING ALBION – An A-Z of the (Dis)United Kingdom
Alfred the Great is turning in Albion’s grave,
Big Brother casts its spell on a TV slave.
Chivalric code is armour corroding to rust,
Darwin’s defeated, the fittest have bitten the dust.
Eastenders’ stories, reality washed out with soap,
Fortress Estates, inhabitants starving on hope.
Gordon Brown praying for Heaven on Earth from afar -
Hoodies delivering Hell with an iron bar.
Island mentalities tear down a bridge for a wall,
Judges cry justice then sentence with nothing at all.
Knights on white statins do battle with weakening hearts,
Lager louts making up less than the sum of their parts.
Minarets shadowing steeples - reversal of roles,
Normans relinquish their conquest to work-hungry Poles.
Orwellian speakers for justice now walking through sleep,
People with courage of lions have morphed into sheep.
Queens English murdered by Pidgin and hip-hop and text,
Road-rager cudgels a driver then takes out the next.
Shakespeare is cursing, his sceptre’d isle bound by a chain,
Taxes are taxing the tax-paying public again.
Union Jack flagging, its standards in torn disarray -
Veterans mourn, then fall out from the legions of grey.
Winnie the Pooh has forsaken his honey for crack,
X-Rays detect that our backbone is under attack.
Yeomen of oak are in hiding from feral youth,
Zealots from No-Go areas screaming their truth.
CALIFORNIA GHOSTS
I walk carefully, almost in silence
through canyons deep as the sea,
old trails cut into the earth
by generations of time,
cathedrals of redwood
racing for cobalt blue skies,
an ocean to die for.....
The spirit of the People
whispers through legions of swaying trees,
envelops like a Mendocino mist,
burns the reddening skin of the unwelcome,
and cleanses with sheets of Spring rain.
As my cumbersome, weary feet
try in vain to fit the moccasins
on earth barely felt,
every broken twig and heavy step
is echoed with distant laughter.
Here and there,
something of their unhurried life remains;
a petroglyph maybe, a marker, a trail,
but such was the manner of their being
that only the land unspoilt
harbours their patient ghosts.
NOTED
I chanced upon your note the other day
on a half discarded scribble-pad,
secreted by my own wavering hand
in an almost bottomless drawer.
Neither treasured nor trashed,
its sentiment still frames a passion
from the not so long ago.
Those happy near-crazed words let loose
like a wild runner, short of breath.
All the "my darling"s and "love you"s,
just common lingo for lovers,
the cliched outpourings of women-folk.
Noted.
Now, half a decade on -
in your other life where notes are cherished -
our worlds don’t even coincide;
and that simple message churns my guts
in the near history of torn regret,
when I crushed the magical in my hands.