It's not usual

It’s not usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months

Or run naked through un-sketched woods reeking of incense

And gloom, ridiculing the battered men on crudely carved crosses-

Dribble running from their loose-lipped mouths tumbling into rivers.

The soul, recently discoloured, doesn’t stay long in such corrosive

Environments where time runs furiously along a thin elastic band

Springing backwards then stretched to eternity.

It isn’t usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months

Keeping warm before the incumbent gates of hell

Afraid to sweep the snow away from the garden and live.

To sweep away the snow, now turning brown, and gild

With shafts of gold the fallen lily.         

EVERYTHING HE DID, HE DID IN JEST

Everything he did, he did in jest

In this contorted frame, badger-like scurrying,
Scrabbling for prey, In the midst of fratricidal disputes-
The dead lingering like ruptured sores-
The dead dripping like candy from Christmas trees,
Our lives meandering, our thoughts remain. 

In this dry season drunken men walk like dragons
Scales roaring with white flame:
Fangs like industrial weapons
Formed into one ghastly metaphor, belching shells from darkened trenches
Beating out wafer-thin souls in Basra. 
Here Hell soared like Heaven of scimitars and virgins; angry youths
In Tennessee praying savagely to a dead god-
Lost limbs their accumulated homage
Laid on the altars with terrifying grief.

In the deserts the sun sinks more rapidly, or appears to, 
In the deserts wars leave permanent evidence,
Carbonised debris, skeletonised trucks, gutted tanks with flaring giblets,
In the deserts wars are rarely tidied away.
The only thing to rot is flesh.


  2

The street in which they live is regularly cleaned,
Dustbins are emptied once a week. No one there
Hears the rumbling in the basements,
The cold sound of torture puncturing existence,
The fleeting sound of knives sharpening on blunt throats,
Children laughing in back gardens
Bullets whistling through winter weather,
The incoherent dragon feasting on rats. 

The postman never calls. He gave up this route
A year ago, fed up of walking in shadows
Dripping with slime. Now, the doorbells chime,
But no one is there.
No one answers.


Tuesday morning an archangel called. No one was home.
He left a card waggling his wings
In frustration. Oh, how the archangel missed god,
Dumped here among the heathen
In an urban utopia-wanting so much to die.
The beatitudes of heaven, of choirs, of clouds, of shame, 
Closed to him for infinity,
God rapping his pure finger-tips on celestial glass coloured
Green and blue, resembling his third best creation.

The archangel, like all his kind, had grown bored
And had taken to drugs
To alleviate the perpetual drone of eternity,
Committing genocide occasionally to relieve his despair, 
Seducing women when that paled
Creating new religions, once every five hundred years, 
When feeling particularly wicked.

Like god, he did not know how to die.



Around god’s head the angels flew
Searching for nits.  Swatting them with his
Infinite, multi-coloured hand
They flew through the darkening universe
Smashed through the earth, 
Ending up at the nuclear core searching endlessly for hell,
While their ominous creator
Smiled. They’d never clocked his humour
After a billion years. Everything he did
He did in jest.

Grenfell Tower2

It disappeared from view
replaced by a charred remain,
a corpse discovered after a battle
undistinquished by explosions.

By saving money, they forgot to save lives-
a commenoration of a lifeless policy
that made society into a burnt out husk!

Grenfell Tower

Grenfell Tower

written by: Steve Pearson

@StevePearsonUK

time ran amok as
hurried by heaven's rent,
over, even as hell had begun,
were they able, some
staggered to salvation,
while others, days were done.
they threw their young
into despairing night
to escape the livid flame,
screamed their pleas
to the impotent throng,
yet ignorant of their name.
their tombstone now stands
black as the night
in a tortured bright blue sky
we will mourn the lost
in the slash of fire
while we demand to answer, why?

Genocide in Qur'an

A response on Linkedin to discussion on genocide in Qur'an. Such ideas are unimaginably dangerous, although truthfully reflect Moslim views.



Abdoul Cowiou Machioudi

Dear Luigi and Stanley. I think for the sake of truth and good intention... We must understand the real meaning of words and what there context are. Just reading both your comments leave me with a feeling that you're both respectful intellectuals however, have you ever read the Quran with proper understanding of its context???? The verse you quote is in the 9th chapter named (Tauba) meaning repentance. The context was that the prophet had enter into an agreement of PEACE treaty between his group of believers against the other Arabs (disbelievers) not to attack each others. What did the latter group did?? They attacked him and broke the peace treaty just because his message of worshipping one God Allah was gaining momentum in Arabia. God then revealed this verse to the prophet (saw) as a form of self-defence against those who attacked him not HUMANITY. A beautiful verse for a beautiful occasion... and we can find the truth of this verse written large in history. (Wiston Churchil famous speech on fighting back the Germans as a method of defence even with Broom stick) is nothing short of natural human behaviour. Unfortunately the media and some people have not been honest in interpreting this verse which is so so sad...

stanley wilkin

Abdoul Cowiou MachioudiI'm afraid you have merely indicated the problem. Only Islam advises violence in this kind of political rather then religious context. I cannot see where this can fit into religious thinking-claims that a god instigates murder is appalling! Sorry, but Muhammed could easily have chosen another way of dealing with this-if it were actually true. In addition, you only have Muhammed's/Qur'an's word for this. What if the violence was originally instigated by Muhammed? Would that alter the response? Religion has to rise above such reactive responses, not engage with them. Perhaps you should engage with other religious thinking, and note that such passages in a religious book are frightening!

Dr. Luigi Petrone

Abdoul Cowiou Machioudi "a beautiful verse"! Oh dear...I am speechless. The human mind of certain individuals can reach unimaginable stretches to justify distorted visions and beliefs. I hope you will change your opinion on this and re-assess the meaning of a beautiful verse.

A response on Linkedin to discussion on genocide in Qur'an. Such ideas are unimaginably dangerous, although truthfully reflect Moslim views.



Abdoul Cowiou Machioudi

Dear Luigi and Stanley. I think for the sake of truth and good intention... We must understand the real meaning of words and what there context are. Just reading both your comments leave me with a feeling that you're both respectful intellectuals however, have you ever read the Quran with proper understanding of its context???? The verse you quote is in the 9th chapter named (Tauba) meaning repentance. The context was that the prophet had enter into an agreement of PEACE treaty between his group of believers against the other Arabs (disbelievers) not to attack each others. What did the latter group did?? They attacked him and broke the peace treaty just because his message of worshipping one God Allah was gaining momentum in Arabia. God then revealed this verse to the prophet (saw) as a form of self-defence against those who attacked him not HUMANITY. A beautiful verse for a beautiful occasion... and we can find the truth of this verse written large in history. (Wiston Churchil famous speech on fighting back the Germans as a method of defence even with Broom stick) is nothing short of natural human behaviour. Unfortunately the media and some people have not been honest in interpreting this verse which is so so sad...

stanley wilkin

Abdoul Cowiou MachioudiI'm afraid you have merely indicated the problem. Only Islam advises violence in this kind of political rather then religious context. I cannot see where this can fit into religious thinking-claims that a god instigates murder is appalling! Sorry, but Muhammed could easily have chosen another way of dealing with this-if it were actually true. In addition, you only have Muhammed's/Qur'an's word for this. What if the violence was originally instigated by Muhammed? Would that alter the response? Religion has to rise above such reactive responses, not engage with them. Perhaps you should engage with other religious thinking, and note that such passages in a religious book are frightening!

Dr. Luigi Petrone

Abdoul Cowiou Machioudi "a beautiful verse"! Oh dear...I am speechless. The human mind of certain individuals can reach unimaginable stretches to justify distorted visions and beliefs. I hope you will change your opinion on this and re-assess the meaning of a beautiful verse.

FIN

Death is a religious substitute for living,
embacing the fantasy of eternal life
dying with a smile
and exhaltation of god-then
FIN