MAYBE

 

Spirit

I came with a wind that blew light from eternity.
I came in the rain that brought Gaia's maternity.
I've smelled the volcano and heard the tsunami.
I watched as the serpent encircled the knowledge tree.
I've been where an angel was thrown out of heaven.
I knew deadly sinners must count up to seven.
I've been where a god-child was born in a stable.
I've been where thirteen sat down at the table.
I saw how a Roman cut down the last Teuton.
I smiled when the apple fell inches from Newton.
I walked through the trenches in mud and artillery
I've seen all the faces that hang in the gallery.
I've been where the opera was sung in falsetto.
I've watched where the children played games in the ghetto.
I've been where the gas was pumped in from the ceiling.
I flew when a single flash left the world reeling.
I've seen dusty skeletons queue up for water.
I've winced when I saw a man raping his daughter.
I've ached as dictators waved over the parapet.
I've cried as celebrities trod a red carpet.
I've watched as the skies turned through silver to leaden.
I've been on ahead and I've seen Armageddon.

But I still cannot warn
        generations unborn
        of the shame and the scorn
        that have plagued a world torn
        since creation's lost dawn.

 

 

Masks

An ethnographer set out
to discover whether people
who live in isolation or
sparsely populated communities
wear masks.
                    From her home
in the city, where crowds
fill the streets, the shops,
the schools, the hospitals,
the offices and factories,
she travelled to distant lands.
She walked into small towns
and found the people were
wearing masks.
                    In one village
they told her of a lonely man
who lived some miles away.
She walked up the long track
to his hilltop shack. She called
a greeting. He came out
wearing an elaborate mask
of painted clay, with bark
and leaves and feathers.
Do you always wear a mask?
she asked. I saw you coming,
he said, and thought it polite
to match your mask with mine.

 

 

The workers take over the factory

My friends, this is no way to live our lives,
Misplaced between intention and effect,
Between the loss of faith and time when hope arrives.

Like angry bees that swarm around their hives,
What do we know of nectar we collect?
My friends, this is no way to live our lives.

So why must we fragment in short half-lives?
Decay of cells is all we can expect
Between the loss of faith and time when hope arrives.

The residue when only memory survives
Is how we will be judged. But self-respect?
My friends, this is no way to live our lives.

The surgeons wield their glinting knives
But their repairs the soul will not affect
Between the loss of faith and time when hope arrives.

Seize now the means that heartless fate contrives
To part us from ourselves. So stand erect,
My friends! This is no way to live our lives—
Between the loss of faith and time when hope arrives.

 

 

A mob destroys the printing press

The published proclamation incenses.
Shouts of oppression form on our lips.
We tear and shred the posters:
the words of authority must not survive.

We storm the printer's workshop with axes
to apply to the press's wooden frame.
When pushed from its bed the forme
loses its grip on type and spacers.
Text shatters into fragments:
letters, numbers, punctuation, spacing.

We leave, our anger vented. The words
still hover in now-quiet workshop air.

 

 

Advent

1   a sigh
2   a walk
3   a word
4   a misty morning
5   a pause
6   a window
7   a longing
8   a wisp of smoke
9   a gesture
10   a message
11   a falling leaf
12   a greeting
13   a cloud
14   laughter
15   a wish
16   birdsong
17   a reminder
18   a confidence
19   a wave of the hand
20   a calm sea
21   a metaphor
22   a smile
23   a direction
24   a hesitation
25   a moment

 

 

The hunt

The feral cats disturb our neighbourhood,
rip open dustbin bags, poo on the lawn,
kill mice, leave entrails on the patio.

So some of us thought we should form a club.
We start out after autumn's misty dawn,
on motor bikes with shouts of tally-ho!

and hunt for cats. We have a dress code: black,
protective helmets as the law requires,
thick gloves against the cats' sharp claws.

We thought of using dogs but that would lack
finesse: the coward's style. Our group aspires
to follow higher standards and deplores

suggestions that we'd kill a cat for sport.
We catch the buggers in a garden net
and drown them in a sack. No gun, no knife.

Some call it cruel—you know the sort:
the country types who'll make us even yet
defend our quaint suburban way of life.

 

 

An earful

I picked a can up in the street
    And put it to my ear.
I heard the din of factories
    That sounded awfully near.

When next I found a seashore shell
    I asked her why. She said,
'The answer's really obvious:
    You hear what's in your head.'

 

 

Ghosts

I do not believe in ghosts.
     And yet.
I have lived in houses where
those now dead must once have lived,
perhaps even where they died—
in Victorian terraces,
a coach house, and a cottage
that once stood back from the cliffs
before Brighton spread eastwards.
   And yet
in none of them did I feel
the lingering of the dead.
We might find a name pencilled
before the wallpaper was hung,
a fag packet, Players Please,
beneath the boards, rusting poles
for the wireless aerial.
     And yet
these are vestiges of life,
of continuing to be,
the soft archaeology
of the human condition
in a world where suits are worn
and children eat potatoes,
mopping up the gravy.
     And yet
I do not believe in ghosts.