AS=poem

As they grew older they grew further away

Withholding their love

Remote, with apparently little to say

No words, no tears, no kind of stuff

Falling from their distant lives

Living with new thoughts, lovers, wives.

A troupe of sons, gambling with time!

 

Alexander was a rotten son of a brilliant father

Misled by a mother’s lies

Into an oedipal outrage. Spurred to violence, rather

Then be a man he became a legend, pursued by biting flies.

Betrayal often leads to success,

The betrayer a psychological mess.

 

The love of a child evaporates

Evident in the lives of kings

The urge for power saturates

Ignores duty, gratitude, those kind of things.

But hell! So what?

We once, objects of their beaming infant smiles, received such a lot.

 

OK, Richard the First left his father to die alone,

John ripped the money from the dead man’s purse,

They then fought each other for the throne

Making a family feud undeniably worse.

Throughout history, the mothers taking new ambitious lovers

Caused greater angst amongst whole generations of brothers.

 

Families are rarely friends: brother fights brother

Sister quarrels with sister, battling incessantly,

Despising each carefully chosen lover

Examining each other critically.

The success of one initiates gloom,

A show of brilliance, a thunderous rain-wrenched boom.

  

Compared to great and legendary figures

Our problems are played out beneath a dimmer light

We drown our thoughts with liquor

Squabble like screeching bats in the night

No grabbing of swords, fastening of armour, beribboned horses

Our mundane arguments have tiny causes.

 

 

 

PARIS OUTRAGE

The great and horrifying tragedy in Paris cannot be laid at the door of Moslems per se, but must be laid at the door of Islam. Why?

The Koran at times reads like a war manual, that is how to deal with those who oppose you, or in Mohammad's eyes god. How god (Muhammad's concept of god) requires you to live your life.

The version of Islam, which has some provenance in the Koran, that underlies these outrages can be found in many countries in Asia and the Near East. There it is normal. Imagine Saudi Arabia conquering Europe and imposing its violent values! Beheadings in the street, misogyny, intolerance and arrogance.

These attacks, directed towards football grounds, clubs, theatres, are against the young and having fun. In this version of Islam, you must not enjoy yourself. The only acceptable form of life is conformity, non-thinking and death!

We must stop making allowances for religion. Parts of the Koran read like Mein Kampf. Parts of the Torah  are recipes for fascism, parts of the gospels are silly. Real wisdom is found elsewhere.

Beautiful Moroccan

BEAUTIFUL MOROCCAN

Dressed in black, dark eyes amused
She strolls into a room
With the specialised tread
Of a femme fatale,
Tossing her streaming hair in arrogant joy.
Her perfect body
Contains the calm and unexpected force
Of the sea, shifting in a moment between

Reason and fury.
She graces the men with sure-footed Arabic,
Stark, sibilant, passionate words
Laughing like a poem.
A Moroccan beauty,
Guedra dancing in the sun,
From the desert coloured mosque of Casablanca
Punctured by the worship Of 70,000 songs,
To the unremitting souks of Marrakesh,
Her complexity
Emboldened by the courage
Of poets.

She has a silence in her intellect
Such as few have,
Unusual evidence of a soul
In a world of franchises,
Her past imaginings deeper and wider
Than that of her peers,
Dancing to fast Gharnati rhythms,
Beneath imagined Andulusian sunsets
And glowing skies.
An effervescent scintillating gasp of fervent
Desert air, beating across her limbs
Moving gently towards silence.

EL, YHWH, ALLAH

EL, YHWH, ALLAH-

El the primordial god is with us still

Read in Academia.edu

AFRAID OF THE RIFLE FIRE!

 

Afraid of the rifle fire, he had

Crouched all day in the dirt,

A dull fellow at the best of times.

Ricocheting bullets bolted to the air

Surfing the wind, screaming

Abuse like ill-disciplined relatives

Arriving for an impromptu visit.

One shattered his head-there it was,

There were its remnants-

Greasy insubstantial grey matter that

Contained his soul. 

An end to drinks in the pub

The love of his wife

The smiles of his children

Holidays in Benidorm with the In-Laws

Paella by the swimming pool.

One bullet, not even new, put an end to a contented life.

casual embrace-poem

 

 

Mutual embrace severed
Out of politeness, leg
Removed from leg we pulled
Apart desiring separation
In the afterglow.


An affair just begun
Is like a morning
After a night of rain, the
Sun sliding through gaps in the
Ceremonious cloud,
Serene, reassuring and secretive.


It was not yet love,
Just lovemaking.
A curious investigation
Of a stranger, hardly known,
Of unspecified views, who
Has not yet freely spoken.


The routine had long ago been fixed,
Inconsequential phrases over coffee,
Denying breakfast, smiles
Without intent. Holding hands
At the door, a kiss,
And then the regretful goodbye.
A voice remembered as a sigh
A movement as pleasure,
No other memory but the callow scent
Of brief uncertain intimacy.

 

 

 

 

the priests of chilon castle

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