A Late World Poetry Day.

 

      Considering it was the day before my birthday, I guess I must be getting old, I missed World Poetry Day, it was yesterday March 21st. However, as they say, better late than never.

Just Imagine!

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation,

not a collection of camps, insular and small

always eager to mount a border brawl

sending forth an army of fruit growers

to shed the blood of some seed growers,

holding high a coloured rag

proclaim, "the blood I shed is for this flag",

believing this justifies the countless dead

across nature's beauty spread.

Can't we learn from yesterday's errors

borders breed false fears and foolish terrors;

each flag waving hand sows the seeds

of tomorrow's pointless brutal deeds.

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation,

all free to walk our chosen path

free from fear of the stranger's wrath.

A brother, rich or poor we can accept

a different coloured skin is cause to reject,

smile at a brown eyed sister with reddish hair

yet mock one who walks a jungle path, bosom bare.

Shower with praise and welcome embrace

anyone from our spurious race,

greet with snarl and angry glare

those strange people from over there;

then useing our culture as some kind of shield

guarantee our future in isolation sealed.

If only we could find the imagination

to see this world as one rich colourful nation. 

A new Dawn.

Today we live in a peace

midst a thousand pygmy wars;

a humanity bankrupt by its past

dragged wearily through darkness and despair

yearns for a day that's cast

long, warm and fair,

a dawn that sees humankind discard

its class, its nation and prepare

to grind outworn creeds to dust,

so mankind naked is revealed,

then moving with common cause,

share

what such a dawn may yield.

Our Children's Inheritance. 

Blind to the future's unrisen dawns

we change nature to industrial debris.

Lead our children to a terrifying land

there to let them do or die.

Consign our children's children

to

poisoned air, a sterile earth,

set hungry faces fishing on some odious fishless sea.

Bequeath them a silent world

where

no feathered friend wings and sings

no hare, no fox runs free; by our efforts guarantee,

no wondrous woodlands, no wild forests,

no blushing bloom of spring,

no clear streams, no rolling meadows,

no fresh breezes blowing in on a bounteous sea.

How can we meet their trusting eye

when our legacy they acquire;

children

who by our actions will receive

a thorn in every kiss, from every mouth a lie.

What will our heart reply when asked,

"Why no harmony with nature?"

"Why has the truth been masked?"

         I can hear you say, "OK, so you missed the day, but there was no need to go into overdrive!!"

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

       March 21st. World Poetry Day. So write a poem, read a poem, recite a poem, talk about a poem, give a poem. Poetry can say so much, it can inspire, comfort, ridicule, bring people together, it is a bridge between the song and the conversation, a wonderful means of self expression. It's free.

     From the labyrinth of my old distorted mind:

I’m Proud

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earth's entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved.

And from a master, a poem I have loved for most of my adult life.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk