1984

woil

My War So Long Ago

image from the Peace Pledge Union www.ppu.org.uk 

My station built,
So many round me leading
And I not led.

My living spilt,
So many round me bleeding
And I unbled.

My sorrow's quilt,
So many round me crying,
My tears unshed.

My touch of guilt,
So many round me dying
And I not dead.

Before The Holocaust

So society puts a small boy with ambition

In charge of a button marker DANGER,
And knowing that he is a smart politician
Goes back to its trough and its manger.

But a small boy plays games, adopts roles and acts parts
And, as boys do, grows up tall and broad,
Plays with diamonds and spades and with clubs and with hearts
And has been been known to play God.

And sometimes a role or a part doesn't suit,
And here are the visions that linger:
The petulant stamp of a petulant foot
And the petulant thrust of a finger.

A Course Of Action

Something must be done!
Something drastic, something
to assuage the bleak, black guilt
felt for all the whales, the dolphins
flown to their icarus suns,

for all the black babes in Africa
metamorphosed into
matchstick men by fat, white
market forces everywhere,

for all the blistered lungs,
the profitably powdered
living bone, the purple pulp
of the imploding, pulsing flesh
of peasants in three continents.

Something must be done.
Something personal to me,
and enraged symbology,
a protest with posters,
a suicidal leap perhaps
from a ground-floor window.

Forgiveness

I have just returned from a visit to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz- Birkenau. I blog about it here and include this poem.  
It seems appropriate to post the poem again here too. Jude x






A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Remembrance Day

is not

about remembering.

It is being seen

remembering,

which is not the same,

especially when

formality sets in,

and ceremony rates

the display more

important than

the remembering.

I and my dead

remember

mutually

at odd times

and anniversaries,

place a flower

occasionally upon

the heart's mantelpiece

and go about our lives.

This public wallow

is for politicians

and their like,

a hoarding for

advertisement,

lying for gain.

Forgiveness

Seems apt to post this again...upon the death of Margaret Thatcher

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Over The Top

His serial-numbered shell

Took out the whole platoon,

Bayonets and pipes and kilts and all.

The stifled battle-cry,

Vaguely Gaelic, burning

With the aftertaste of rum,

Voiced the ancient barbarity

Regimentally nurtured

In the 'Ladies From Hell.'

The shrieking axe bit deep,

Hacked the post-death sentience

To a sliver of awareness.

The clenched discarnate soul

Focused a consciousness

Frozen in mid-leap.

A cry of ritual aggression

Silently screaming

Down eternity.

Before The Holocaust

So society puts a small boy with ambition
In charge of a button marker DANGER,
And knowing that he is a smart politician
Goes back to its trough and its manger.

But a small boy plays games, adopts roles and acts parts
And, as boys do, grows up tall and broad,
Plays with diamonds and spades and with clubs and with hearts
And has been been known to play God.

And sometimes a role or a part doesn't suit,
And here are the visions that linger:
The petulant stamp of a petulant foot
And the petulant thrust of a finger.

A Consolation Of Mountain Men

Those self-same missiles which
will slice a thousand feet
off each of the Munros
will also scythe the climbers
who might mourn them.

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.