Ghosts Upon A Stage

Around them lie the feasts of Christmas
like ghosts upon a stage,
beyond the hand of the huddled listless,
displaced and disengaged.
About them and without them, their society
rises to toast the day,
preening and shining their lives brightly,
like shiny children at play.
People of a lower world descend to mire,
the table of the least,
absent the outrageously glittering choir
of the lavishly bloated feast.
Collection of the fallen, lesser chosen-ones,
seeking scant deliverance,
raw and painful hunger in their frozen bones,
are treated with indifference.
They're fading beneath the bejewelled lights
like ghosts upon a stage,
with nothing beyond their Noel midnights
but the bars of an absent cage.

Waiting For The Day

In the early joyous days of Yule
where child excites to run from school,
frosted noses and hanging breath,
icy skies and sky-blue fresh.
Children imbued with Christmas song
wait and wait as days grow long,
'til here, the day of eve spins wild,
ticks and tocks upon every child.
While yet Saint Nick prepares his sleigh
with lanterns glowing to light his way.
About the towns the fall of night
delights the throng 'neath Noël light,
'til beds awaiting impossible sleep,
tight closed eyes and counted sheep,
brings magic slumber to ease the thrill,
and about the house the thrall grows still.
Joy and all wondrous colourful things,
toys and all Saint Nicholas brings,
spread around the green and shining tree
awaiting children all dressed in glee.
And lo, they spring to suddenly wake,
to shriek and chime each noise they make.
These gifts of Christmas once more borne
upon a bright and crisp December's morn

The Cry

From slumber wakes the nation’s pride
Like lions lain by side, by side.

From torpor to vigil, unmoved to rouse,
As one, to battle, a nation vows.

Divests itself of the timid hush
And shove by shove, we push and push.

England, my England, the lions roar
And roar, and roar, and roar, and more

A kiss for the legend and impassioned cry
We’re England, and will be, till the day we die.

Sandy Hook

Like snowflakes fallen on virgin ground
They fell to earth and made no sound.
While heathen hand held hellish sway
Taking life and love away.

Child after child after child was slain
Then child after child after child again
The last sight such young beauty saw
Those instruments made for ugly war.

Another and another and another gone
Yet more and more and one by one
The flakes of snow had fallen still
Each glow of life cut down by ill.

To where the left and bereft fly
To seek resolve to wonder why?
Answer? The end of evil done
Is within the barrel of another gun.

Mother With a Phone

Her phone is her fixation
Parenthood abdication
While her three year old walks alone
Social media on her mind
Becoming children blind
Giving herself to the beloved phone
Is she parenting by smell?
Or following a tinkling bell?
Or the child sees the mother safe
Maybe luck is the saviour
Fate owes the child a favour
Harm avoids the little phone-waif
Like an inconvenient call
Her child just wants it all
Wants a mother who wants her too
Yet a phone is uppermost
To her three year old ghost
Unseen-child seems see-through
Please put that phone away
Watch your children at play
Don’t leave their parenting to chance
Tragedy lives at the gate
And too late is just too late
Parenthood is love not happenstance

Ninety Nine Percent Austerity

Still lower goes commonality
Toward an inescapable nadir
An absurdly loaded inequality
Beneath a crumbling veneer

See through our broken mirror
See society fractured there
As on opposite banks of a river
Obscene wealth and cut welfare

We’ve abrogated plain fairness
At the barrel of an austerity gun
And society that couldn’t care less
As long as their deeds are done

The culture of self is our new reality
No care for the unredeemable poor
Dispassion is our new commonality
And the one percent just accrue more

Funereal Scene

Here lies the sorry end
of the aged nation-state
shot like a tethered dog
to appease the feted “great”,
and “good” of the watching
money-honey men
determined to return
the wretched to their pen.
they, the moneyed few,
defend their callous cull
while they, the huddled masses
strive to survive the lull
This is what we are now
we’re done with caring who
or why the people struggle.
the nation-state is through.
get on, you little people,
the fodder must be flumed
the gods must see oblation
the gift must be consumed

Poverty

Hunger hangs over the poor
as shackles to the slave,
a keeper, an overseer,
from the cradle to the grave.
Witness too, the needful child
amid a sea of affluence
ne’er the two be reconciled
ne’er a fairer balance.
Witness the mother begging for alms
see her life in her eyes
the supplication of her upturned palms
as passers by despise.
Witness the father’s despairing dive
to the bottom of the pile
losing the struggle to simply survive
a land of plenty exile.
Like weeds amongst the fields of gold
impoverished people all
the hopers, the lost, the young and the old
left to the ground where they fall.

Mr & Mrs Shallow

Mr Shallow is on the move I guess
Under the beautician’s knife
He’s got new neighbours to impress
With his painting by numbers life
And box fresh Barbie wife.

No mundanity for Mrs Shallow either
She wears the bullshit so well
She thinks everybody wants to be her
Suppose you never can tell
What rings her fucking bell

Think I’ll stay happy with what I’ve got
In my boring, perfect existence
I’ve hit my nail on the head somewhat
I kinda landed on a sixpence
With my little life of substance.