It doesn't get much worse than this Unsmiling face and empty kiss No solace here, my darkest hour A stark moment when love turns sour Peering into the abyss It doesn't get much worse than this A little death; this love was our Brave new world, a call to power Delicate, a brief Spring flower Fading in my ivory tower It doesn't get much worse than this Ill-advised dreams fail in darkness So here it is, my darkest hour Nothing left now, hope's meek cower My ending nears, an anti-bliss It doesn't get much worse than this
Page 6 of 9
Glorious, they said, aloud
Head held high, saluting, proud
A victory march, again
More lies broadcast by his pen
Reality disavowed
His job done, his public wowed
No silver lining, this cloud
One more End-of-Days omen
Glorious, they said
Take a look back at fields ploughed
With all that hindsight allowed
Think too what will happen
If we abstain once again
And clothe ourselves in that shroud
Glorious, they said
Words capturing feelings
Like drawing the Mona Lisa
With hopscotch chalk
On a gravel path
Whilst the model grimaces, coughs
And rearranges herself
Finally leaves, as clouds mask the sun,
Dances in the rain
And returns, soaked and uncooperative,
To scowl at the artist
And even then
Just as the outline form seems right
The rains wash eveything away
Other patterns form and reform
And the hapless artist
Can only watch
And drop is useless tools to the ground.
I received a link to on online diary website I had forgotten I ever joined. It has taken me back to Viet Nam…
Beethovens Ode to Joy is beginning to sound recognisable, although he probably never envisaged the distortion from the amp or the effects of the whammy bar . I’m also getting to grips with a jazzy version of Happy birthday for Munch’s big day in only three weeks time. Two already – hard to believe.
Im teaching full time now. So the book is grinding to a halt. Who am I kidding? It ground ages ago. It’s not really a writer’s block -more a writer’s apathy. This project is in danger of slipping out of sight and mind. I just can’t get to it.
Sometimes I just look at my daughter and I think, ’That’s it. I’ve achieved. Anything else I do from here on in is a bonus.’ And it’s not a bad thought.
Thoughts on this, 12 and a half years later…
- Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is still on the agenda. Guitar lessons have been revived as I invested in an electric guitar for my mid-life crisis.
- The book – The Year of the Monkey – never got back off the ground after a return to full time teaching. Other bits of writing, as this site is testament, do surface from time to time.
- Munch is now 14, and I still look at her and think the same thing.
This, your first communion,
Gives no assurance of celestial reunion
It’s a yoke you choose to wear
The empty promise of unheard prayer
Its tenants and rituals offer only confusion
I’m feeling tarnished and somewhat complicit
In this indoctrination, this illicit
Eight year old’s promise of servitude
An abuse of childhood, crass and rude
This institution is humanity’s deficit
This is no tool of education
This is simple subjugation
This supplication to the divine
Subjecting the child, a crime
Colluding in foolish fabrication
Perverse, this virgin creed
A cloak for mankind’s greed
Grown of nomadic superstition
Deaf to rational petition
Not a solution, not the one we need
A god who needs your pledge of devotion
And delights in such frivolous commotion
Lifted not a finger nor cried
For all the babies which today have died
He feels not, cares not, lacks emotion
This ritual, this cultural veneer
Superstitious nonsense to mask the fear
Of no purpose beyond that which YOU create
You have no need of divinity to make you great
Your life, you can learn to better steer
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
Metaphorically, literally
The train tracks its clanking route too fast
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
But the fuel it’s using cannot last
Are we seeing reason, finally?
Trees are flying, blurring into the past
Metaphorically, literally
Folkestone, England. June 2017