The Reckoning
Have we not witnessed two centuries of hate,
unspeakable horrors, on land and on seas,
forced Democracy down on her knees
with barbaric massacres and mindless waste?
Yet, blinding Hatred brooks no debate;
intellect revered, with Wisdom and Peace
held to ransom by plutocrats obese;
undermined, Faith flees, carries no weight.
Despots, demagogues, harangue the masses
slaves to gadgetry and consumer greed,
while Mammon presides with none to intercede
over a planet denuded of natural resources.
Blithely blinkered in rose-tinted glasses
we ignore the Reckoning – it fast approaches.
Lifespace
Please grant me space, I want to live
freed from past failure. A few forgotten
triumphs, thinly glimpsed, remain shining
like polished armour; though hardly a crusading knight
defending honour, faith or creed.
Instead, taken for granted service offered
to fellow humans for small recompense.
Sequel to long languishment in lowly work, inducing
contempt of others in looks, words and deeds.
Married, with dutiful spouse sharing a benign burden,
Earning a wage, bringing up children, since grown and fled.
Recollections – claws of ragged acrimony, grate over
Past inflicted wounds. Let me bury these now and forever;
find space here, where I want to live
in harmony and peace,
having no higher powers to please.
Belief
Unproven belief in an Almighty God
Jehovah, Allah, sprang from the East,
providing Mankind with a timely code
of moral principles in a paradigm neat.
Religions provoke blind sectarian wars
of ethnic discord and border conflict;
proselytising accompanies the use of force
to build Empires, rabid, fundamentalist.
Physicists argue the origin of the universe;
philosophers postulate the Creator – a hypothesis
still unproven, and open to diverse
interpretations, awaiting full exegesis.
Is it so necessary in a scientific age
to worship idols and work up a rage?
Better harness resources and improve the lot
of humans on earth whether believers or not.
Endowment
Authors Chekov and Maupassant
gave slice of life and dénouement,
a literary heritage spanning the earth
of narrative, drama and poetic worth;
we who have come so late to the art
must stiffen our sinews and play our part.
In a world of reality shows and trash,
how can the poet be so bold and brash
as to lift his head above the parapet wall
and listen, not to sirens, but the Muse’s call?
If the Masters had bequeathed us nothing else
it was the contempt for all that sells.
But now we appear to assess the merit
of a work through the columns of debit and credit.
Who cares a whit for the Arts anymore?
when we are crass materialists to the core?
Derren, or Dan, or Gordon Brown
renowned illusionists, reaching for the crown.
Trademarks
The trademarks of my youth are now all but lost;
G-nibs, Platignum, gave way to ballpoint.
I sharpened pencils with an old 7 O’clock blade,
(where are they now?). Last year at school, a self-conscious teen
dependant on hard-working parents for daily bread,
still managed to sport a tailored ‘sharkskin’ suit. I wore it at family functions
with John White shoes, shined to perfection with Kiwi boot polish. I wore
a maroon-gold school tie wound round my neck, size fourteen
over a white Broadway shirt. Satin drill and Tussore, were our workaday wear,
with flannel and tweed for the late-evening jaunt, until
polyester synthetics vanquished them all.
We must have travelled in Austin, Morris cars;
then, being conveyed in the less-reliable (thallu) Ford, quickly overtaken by VW and Toyota.
Brylcreem replaced the smelly coconut oil. Household necessities like
Sunlight soap and Andrew’s Liver Salt vied for shelf-space alongside the shaving-brush.
With upper body bare and a sarong round the torso, we wore
wooden clogs and slipped on the cement floor (off-duty, only at home)
until the pure-white National Dress trumped the suited gents.
Meeting friends at the junior-officers’ mess, I wore the cravat –
(what happened to these?). Cravats are rare, scarcer than bow-ties.
BSA, Triumph, my trusty conveyances were replaced by Honda
and, no longer sighted in any of our roads.
These are the recollections of a septuagenarian exile
for whom trademarks remain the landmarks of his youth.
Earth, 2013
Marx, dear Karl, thou shouldst be living at this hour;