Oil Tanka

OIL TANKA

Never mind the shell game
The carny show sleight of hand
It’s slowly crumbling
Empire jerry-built on sand
What next? Fracking hell

As If (A post for April Fool’s Day)

AS IF

As if it mattered

How the name was spelt
Or misspelt
Whether there were vowels
Or none at all
Or was avoided completely
To avoid guiltlessness

And is it sacrilegious
To omit the capital
Speaking or writing
Of the Reality that stands behind
The ancient glyphs?
Is this truly the gate to the pit?

As if it mattered

That some grouping or other
Has its sacred viewpoint
One that it is quite ready
To defend to the death
Or impose on others
On pain of a painful death

As if it had a gender
Or skin of whatever colour
(Preferably white thank you)
With or without a flowing beard
Spoke Latin or a cultured English
Or – God forbid – Arabic

As if it mattered

Whether there was one (One?) alone
A trio of some kind (quite popular)
Or a squabbling familiar handful
Or too many to keep track of
Whether it was worried what you ate
And had a fondness for some particular day of the week

As if …

Home From Afghanistan (Repost)

HOME FROM AFGHANISTAN

The organ breathes softly in the still air.
The gentle hesitant notes,
just enough to underline the silence,
not wanting to intrude.

………… and i am suddenly awake
………on the alert
………i can hear something, see shapes out there
………but i can’t make anything out clearly in the murk
………then gradually i start to lose focus
…….. my thoughts begin to blur and drift
………i open my eyes …

In a corner, with the dust and cobwebs,
a few bits of confetti,
reminders of joyful celebrations.
A world away today.

………in this uncanny night of timeless wandering
………i stumble upon a small band
………shadows suddenly shift
………enough to frighten a blind man
………platoons of sound slowly die away in the darkness
………the village band dandelion puffs soft sadly mushroom
………playing out my hero hour

In the vestry the vicar rehearses.
Murmurs reassuring words,
“We gather to remember and honour …”
And puts on his surplice.

………with gold braid yawns
………bosoms fall flat with a sigh
………- i squint in the dim sickly lights of the small hours
………flashback, or perhaps déjà vu, the undead walk
………no – i see it’s just a harmless man
………and his harmless dog little puzzles in the moon
………he looks at me funny in my hero hour

Everyone in the surrounding area
is here to show their respect.
“Died immediately, mercifully.”
“By a sniper, I think.”

………bosoms fall flat in gold braid yawns
………sighs slide passively past my ravaged eyes
………- no more vain attempts to guess significance
………down the wind i hear the village band’s dandelion
………puff mushroom soft and sadly blowing – i squint in the haze
………“Walk up, walk up,” says the man
………and his dog seems to pant at the moon

Someone’s mobile goes off and is silenced.
Curious, a small child whispers,
“Mummy, where do people go when they die?”
“Hush, pet” is the answer.

………the dog has big eyes like a cow’s
………yet he walks as if he can’t see
………like a puddle waiting to evaporate in the sun
………while the gold braid dandelion mushroom puffs on sad softly
………- i see it’s only a harmless man
………and his harmless dog like puddles in the moon
………he looks at me funny in my hero hour

………a pale trick in the lonely night

The Pilgrim’s Progress

THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

Will I reattain as it was written
The ocean where crystals shatter and drip
A will-o’-the-wisp with magic lantern
The westering shrouds of a mourning ship?

Will I be arrested on the waters
Carried off to the strand of the dead
Among the willows by the river
Where the grass is scattered and the shadows are fled?

The quality of majesty in a jealous god
To leave an amnesty in his will
Miscellaneous chaos still takes its toll
The cannons sound across the hill

The smoking candle, the sounding bell
Written and arrested as it shall be
While one skull wanders in search of a ring
The other stares open-mouthed at me

Haiku From Calvary

HAIKU FROM CALVARY

By all that’s holy!
What the hell is going on?
In the name of God!

Remembrance Day

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Came to one morning found himself,
a stranger at the wedding,
among all these earnest young men
applicants for the ministry.

(Yes, it was all men in those days
- incredible as that should’ve been.)
They’d be studying books and such,
they told him, and he was appalled,

for he could not discover one
among all those ministers-to-be
whose bell when struck rang true, betrayed
true religious experience.

Ah me, the arrogance of youth!
He was convinced that they, as he
meant well, and indeed were good men
and yet, to his eye, they were blind.

The blind leading the blind? Futile!
More years lost in the wilderness.
Remembrance Day, year after year,
honouring the sixth commandment:

thou shalt not kill. (But not really.)
“War is peace.” “Ignorance is strength.”
Venomous fork-tongued doublespeak
pollutes even the house of God.

Hope

HOPE

Though warnings sound throughout the land
And no one seems to understand
And though the end is close at hand
You and I will stand
My brother
You and I will stand

Though they send their planes to sow the land
With seeds of the destruction they have planned
And the rumours of war are on every hand
You and I will stand
My sister
You and I will stand

…..BRIDGE
…..Yesterday´s joy soon turns to sorrow
…..What´s right today may be wrong tomorrow
…..But when we’ve fought our fights
…..And had our fun
…..We shall all be judged by the things we’ve done
…..When we’ve fought our fights
…..And had our fun
…..We shall all be judged by the things we’ve done

And one day soon their fortress grand
Will crumble back into the sand
And we shall sing throughout the land
You and I will stand
My brother
You and I will stand

You and I will stand
My sister
You and I will stand
——————————————————————

It’s a song, so don’t expect too many pyrotechnics in the text. It’s supposed to be direct, straightforward and easily sung by vast crowds of very determined people.

A Well Known Story

A WELL KNOWN STORY

It is a well known story,
And I’m sure you’ve heard it said,
That of all the animal kingdom
The Lion is the head.

He sits assured upon his throne
And knows he can’t be moved,
But still the King Of The Jungle
Must sometimes have it proved.

So he went to see the Tiger,
Who was sitting having tea
“Who’s the King Of The Jungle?”
The Tiger said, “Why, me.”

This made the Monarch angry
And made the Tiger regret it;
As he landed in a pile of plates
The Lion roared, “Don’t forget it!”

He next sought out the Zebra,
A milder sort of beast.
“And do you mind telling me, peasant … ?”
“Oh no, sir, not in the least.”

But once the question was finished
The Zebra changed his song,
Saying “I’m the King of the Jungle,
And if you think different you’re wrong.”

The Lion flew into a rage
And beat him with a broom
And tore the stripes from off his back
And stormed out of the room.

He rudely hailed the Elephant.
The placid beast never stirred.
“WHO IS THE KING OF THE JUNGLE???”
She answered not a word,

Just picked the Lion up in her trunk
And gave him such a shake,
Then wrapped him round some nearby trees
And threw him in the lake.

The Lion lay there an instant,
Till he knew who he was again,
Then stepped from the water gracefully
And proudly shook his mane.

Calmly he approached the Elephant
With all the style of a dancer
And said, “Well, there’s no need to get annoyed
Just because you don’t know the answer.”
——————————————————————

The ego has access to a seemingly bottomless font of self-deception. At the macro level this ego expresses itself as exceptionalism. (If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you might want to look it up on Dictionary.com )

Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” And before you blow a gasket, do have an open minded and open hearted look at the way the poor word has been (and *is*) being (mis)used.

The Cats Of My City

THE CATS OF MY CITY

All the cats in my city are identical
Not just similar, but identical
It’s a kind of camouflage grey
Not what you’d call attractive exactly
But our people have always had
Big, accepting and welcoming hearts

Another of their characteristics is curiosity
I mean the people here, not the cats
Sometimes they catch a couple of the strays
Kill and cut them open to see if they truly are that identical
As if, with their knowledge and equipment
They had any chance of learning

There are others who point out that random radiation
Will bring mutation in time, so we see again
The differences the historical accounts are so full of
They have forgotten, clearly, that the cats are all sterile
Which shows the discretion taken maintaining the population level
Sometimes I wonder why that is

Must be some genetic limitation that prevents them reproducing
Like the one that causes the bones of their skulls to melt
So that their faces lose their chiselled, determined features
Gradually collapse, becoming more and more indistinct
And eventually they die
Though not before we’ve grown to love them

And it’s not as if we’ll forget
When the same face is everywhere
Not just on the remaining cats
But in all those paintings and sculptures and other representations
Of the pilot who bombed our city that day
And brought us our freedom