STEPHEN FRANCIS-AWAY AND HOME

Away and Home

They walk and stare and walk and stare

Like I am some alien, not meant to be there.

I ask for help, they smile and nod

And then they simply walk off.

Is it me I ask? Is it me?

Should this place me free

Of one so clearly of another breed?

No, surely not.

That can’t be right.

I ask again, I beg, I plead.

Yet one by one they ignore me

As if I were a rotten seed

Planted by a foreign hand.

It is me. It is me.

They want this place free

Of one so clearly of another breed.

Funny that.

I leave.

I return.

With warmth and smiles I am greeted.

Refinement it may lack

Without a doubt that’s a fact.

But at least it has its humanity intact.

HONOUR by STEPHEN FRANCIS

Honour

They have used me and I have served.

How could I not?

They made me what I am.

A servant to their cause.

I’ve seen Queens crowned.

Threats of invasion from afar.

Overseen their communications.

Remained steadfast

As a good subject does.

I serve Queen and country.

I provide shelter for the Virgin

And light for her successors.

I trembled as planes flew above

And celebrated as they flew no more.

I’ve watched from afar, as the great playwright worked,

As theories and principles that would shape the world

Were committed to paper for forever more.

I’ve seen evil and good, hatred and love

Entangled in their eternal battle

From high above.

And as I waned, as I began to fall

Like all the Queen’s servants must do

Even those that had once stood so tall

Above it all, yet never apart

I can fade happy knowing this oak has honoured thy Virgin. 

Goodbye London, my one true love.

is there? poem by joe

How do we know of god?
By word, visible presence or internally-constructed belief?
Can we read a book and know
That these are a god's words
Or sense that an ambitious man
-great or malevolent-
Created them for temporary gain,
To impress others, or for power.
Is god a grandiose representation
Of either gender, and why should that be?

The myriad flowers scattered around,
wind-blown, gale tossed
are but our planet's codes
Tree and toad
are equal products of earth and time.

Why ask for another kind of being
in a world replete
with every grim and wonderful sort,
in another realm surrounded by
other winged and chubby divinities?
Why believe that old books,
written in time and place,
are products of gods?

Do gods really write so badly?

Religion and falsification

Religions function through a process of falsification. While science requires proof that is accepted as consequent to cause and effect, religion creates instead propositions of proof. Examples of this are the Christian's belief that Christ is Son of God, and Moslem's belief that the Koran is written/direct transmission of god.

Falsification: in the first to overcome the trauma of Jesus's crucifixion, the second to provide ammunition against those who refused Mohammad's leadership. In the Koran Mohammad states that his words cannot be found anywhere else, the sentences, passages are peculiar to the Koran. They are not repeated. Of course, Mohammad obtained his words from other Holy text. This is a proposition of proof, or falsification of proof.

Once again......

https://issuu.com/stanleywilkin/docs/the_final_farewell.docx/9?e=18198607/30000297

THE FINAL FAREWELL

THE FINAL FAREWELL

Stanley Wilkin


ISSUU publications

Husbands chastising wives in Pakistan.

A proposition to make it illegal in Pakistan for husbands to strike wives has been criticised as un-Islamic. I have not got far enough in my reading of the Koran to know if this is true, but there are a number of unsettling items in the book.

As yet I have failed to find anything in the Koran I would describe as arresting. So far no discernible wisdom! The lack of clear intellectual material is worrying. It is simply, so far in my reading, layers of incantation.

MOTH-written by Stephen Francis

Moth

There is a moth on my windowsill.

It fluttered around till

It died.

Should I have cried

At its futile life

Having survived all the strife

That an insect can endure

It collapsed, seduced by the allure

Of a simple bulb

Its only use now to be used as pulp

For future generations.

We look upon these creatures

With their alien features

And snigger at their irrelevance

While congratulating our intelligence

All the while unsuspecting

Or perhaps objecting

To the idea we may have more in common

With the blossom

And the robin

Than we care to imagine.

Such are our limitations

So I remember its plight

By the poem I write

Goodnight my unknown moth.

https://issuu.com/home/statistics/publications/the_dark_priests_of_chilon_castle.d

https://issuu.com/home/statistics/publications/the_dark_priests_of_chilon_castle.d

Morning

While the darkness accumulates
life freezes, breathe congeals,
and there is no morning.

YOUNG WRITERS BEWARE! on-line magazines

Online magazines offering critiques of stories or poetry is like a dog giving a lecture on physics. Yes I have been venomous about Bill Bowler, the owner of Bewildering Stories but with reason. He is, after all, neither a well known nor a proficient writer no matter what fantasies he may harbour. Establishing a website costs relatively little and provides no rights to writing authority.