At your mum's

It's a long walk from the station
knowing you won't be there;
the empty streets echo my thoughts -
tonight you will not soothe my care.

Who would have thought that loner me,
who prided living to himself,
would find in you such love and help
that you became, as if by stealth,

a cloud enveloping then absorbed
from time and sympathy shared alike,
changing the outlines of my life -
new land reclaimed by a dyke.

Most of the time we live too close
and, out of focus, cannot see
the lineaments of love that touch
unfolds unknowingly.

We need to part for time to think
and feel the emptiness surround,
to know we both are growing ever
closer together in love's ground.

The boss again

You,
hypocrite and liar,
make me one too
when
in your power,
I can't speak true.

I have my doubts about the common phrase
much used by politicians and economists
who often advocate 'freedom of choice'
without then speaking of what it consists.

Now if it means ability to choose
whether to fill ones belly or to starve, it's clear
the choice is much the same as that between
whether to have clean drinking water or the fear

of waterborne diseases. But perhaps
the phrase includes those freedoms we all need - to choose
disease or health, unlettered ignorance
or basic education, jobs through life that use

our skills or wasteful enforced idleness,
subjection to dictators or democracy.
No choice is needed  for necessities;
'freedom of choice' is only for vain luxury.

The time is past and will not come again
when love was spun with glances in the air;
the feelings fade and only words remain.

What I do not feel I will not feign
but do not think I do not care
the time is past and will not come again
.
The memory of love causes no pain
for time and distance shrivel what was rare;
the feelings fade and only words remain.

Your smile put those poems in my brain,
an audience of one with shining hair;
the time is past and will not come again.

Life is dying but growing again
and love is having faith in what you dare;
the feelings fade and only words remain.

But love's experience is not in vain;
what we have been through we still can share;
the time is past and will not come again,
the feelings fade - but still the words remain.

War Graves Commission

This summer cemetery queue
to visit those beneath
waits patiently alert in line
for its advance to stain
the dark incline.

Over the top the field of view
discloses restored heath
where gravestones martially arrayed
in rank and file remain
dressed on parade.

This sunny graveyard grinning through
neat rows of dragon teeth
disguises errors of command,
decisions which the slain
can't countermand.

Did architects of memory rue
the sword outside the sheath
and reimburse the withered lives
to prove they weren't in vain
with fame that thrives?

Did soothing peacefulness ensue?
But what could compensate for death?
Despite the calm, death is not peace
though horror, fear and pain
must surely cease.

Why do we all prefer, in lieu
of thorny crown and wreath,
polished lawn and manicured stone
to glory rotted brain
and splintered bone ?

We seem to think we own the Earth
as something inherited from birth
whereas we've really stolen it
and very soon will have broken it.

We've used the land, the sea, the air
as if there's nothing important there
to stop us doing whatever we like
(and if there was, we wouldn't care).

We suffocated the soil with cities,
buried our wastage at its roots
and like commencing hostilities
dumped on it everything that pollutes.

It's only very recently
we've started to realise what we've done
and though some payback has begun
it's not enough. We urgently

have to address the planet's need.
But with human nature as it is
we can't eliminate human greed
and competition for personal status.

So the only way to avert disaster
for all the other life on the planet
is actually taking action faster
to identify the cause and ban it.

We won't reduce our global warming
and all the rest of human harming
just by looking at carbon footprints.
We need to reduce the NUMBER of footprints.

The solution is trimming our population.
The Chinese had the right idea
but we won't stem human copulation
so the need for contraception is clear.

Although the birthrates of richer countries
are already starting to decrease,
that of Africa is set to explode
so the world's population will still increase.

We need the richer nations to help the poorer
reduce their birthrates for all our sake's
and make contraception free for all
and also abortion to counter mistakes.

Then, hopefully, we'll soon be seeing
everyone, everywhere all agreeing
more than two children is unacceptable
all the while babies are contraceptable.

However smart respectable we are,
beneath our shiny show of clothes and skin
we carry stinking shit inside our bowels.
Though there's no problem while contained within
ourselves, eventually weak ageing dreads
loss of control. But even that's less foul
than some of the shit inside our heads.