Poems

THE HEALING HOUSE


"the public interest is taken care of by the private
interest of wanting to make money"
John Redwood 1994

"we have been the dreamers, we have been the
sufferers, now we are the builders"
Aneurin Bevan, 1945

bring your children to the nursery
with their disease and sickness,
this is the place where I hope to cure all illness
at the point of need, this is an emergency

come now, our tomorrow
rest yourself
as i halt fear and heal bone marrow,
and, from an early death
i promise emancipation,
with my doctors, nurses
and vaccinations

let in the mothers
the pool is ready for another,
carer of the next generation,
sleep, prepare for this new birth,
I offer you protection,
as you grow the roots of our new earth

welcome, people from other nations,
with troubled faces from distant places,
i have room for you, my new patients,
i have no borders to caring,
pain has no dialect, this language is for sharing
let love be found in translation

sit, eat from my pantry,
become healthy
as you, you are my ultimate test,
bring me your tortured tongues
so you may speak again
from far off battlefields show your scarred flesh
so i can stem the blood and heal your pain.

to you, the wiser, the elderly, the old,
do not be afraid, do not huddle in the cold,
my door is open,
come in, come in,
it is warm, trust us,
and i shall lance the boils of poverty's injustice,
and drain the infection,
as in my house these rooms
offer cure by prevention,

and so to the sick, to the dying, those crippled with
disease
stay, in my garden,
breath,
lay, beneath the trees
i shall provide peace and serenity
to strengthen the health of vulnerablity
no matter what age, sex, class, race or country,


my windows pour penicillin
my library, the words of the masters,
Simpson, Pasteur and Fleming
not market forces or ignorant capitalists

so be careful how you treat your house, our home
never neglect or leave alone
keep clean, add extensions
but never damage the bricks or remove my foundations

from the wasteland of squalor, disease and
dereliction,
I am the safe place
the healing home
injecting cells with reconstruction,
the everlasting bandage
to deliver all from illnessed bondage
I am the suture
to stitch the wounds of the past
but i am the scalpel
to carve the future
to make this dream last
to make this dream last.

"the verb is more important than the noun"
Aneurin Bevan



THE MEMORY OF STEEL

(after the bombing of qana, july 2006)

prejudice stalked you
gas crucifixes birthed numberless graves
shards of history stabbed solicitude senseless
you, prometheus, wandering shoeless in the desert
the world cried for you
stabbed oppression in your name
marched against your deniers
we hold you in our memory
still fight to halt it ever happening again

yet

now

you have become jupiter
as you stamp on weaker,
crucify those who are not like you
is this the final solution
to humanitys illness
are you the new ss,idf?

a suicide bomber, no dirtier than a missle attack
an israeli man no different to a palestinian child
a bullet is a bullet
no matter the cause
so
how can we clench our fists then close our eyes?
at this atrocity born from atrocities
a cataract crusade
just like before

you chant

"shalom, shalom, shalom"

and

the world closes its eyes
for a minutes silence
but still the air strikes sting with avengeance
and your guns still roar
your guns still roar.................
listen listen,
the traintracks freeze in despair
the barbed wire clings to polluted air
but your memory
is nowhere
is nowhere....................

as now


the shoes are not on the other feet



dialogues with the deaf
(for my grandfather and great grandfather)

in the calm safety of my radiatored room
my freshly washed hand clicks at the white mouse,
tips of fingers tap tenderly at the letters
the quiet comforting hum of the computer screen
i dig into history
like the speed of memory
i find the site
commonwealth war graves commission
the years flash like teeth in front of me
i find the link to “the dead of world war 1”
like an afterthought
like an ebay helpline
i type in my mother’s grandfather’s name
two words that give flesh to this plastic
two words that have been
two words that lived and breathed,
loading, loading
my mobile rings, i ignore
i find th reference
then pay by code and credit card
for his medal card
then
it is delivered silently through an invisible universe
and my breathing jars, my hands sweaty
screaming like a star
shot like a spear through the years
the mustard gas tears
the mud soaked trenches, the hysterical yelping, the blood, the bleeding, amputations, destruction,sludge drudge and victorious speeches
a battered white and black photograph
of a medal record
two words,
this time amongst millions
two words of hope
and pride
i check the details.........
yes, that’s him
two words amongst history’s narrative
i try to imagine his face, his eyes staring at the the fields, his fingertips blacked and gnarled, his boots, his tin mug, his pencil letters, his waiting to return home
i read the card
theatre of war
france
applause, audience, entertainment....theatre?
then scribbled like a child’s handwriting

“Dead”

all those years, filed away in some grey building
sleeping next to a million other “Dead” souls
unknown, unseen, unheard of
un

i save the photograph in my file
knowing i must never lose this document
turn off the computer
face the empty screen
face myself
turn away from history
face the future





MAN KIND
(for waris dirie)


eyelids down
drenched in righteuousness
spitting venom upon innocent skin

sworn
to secrecy
steeped in indignity
parading as,
cultural identity,

stapled sexuality
an egotist’s litany
controlling lives
with rusted knives

stitched virginity
with thorns of masculinity

the mouth clings to memory
as blood in dirt
an indelible history
drowned in theocracy

even diamonds slip to insignificance
as the price of purity
rises as does
the perpetual misery

be it religion or cultural
that shape the fear of the clitoral
all are evil and genocidal

eyelids open
drenched in morality
spit reason
upon decrepid ritual





DYSUNITEDNATION

(for babi badalov)

'everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution' article 14 of the universal declaration of human rights

in great great britain
land of hope and glory
land of the royal fairy tale story
patrol your borders obey their orders
but we spent 53 million on the dome
but close our hospitals and moan
at asylum seekers taking our money
our homes our jobs our liberty
lets lock em up before they destroy our economy
"ssssseeeeeeeeeee
we're valleee people we aint no racists
but if they cum yer you'll get ower fists"
in great great britain

this dysunited nation of red. white. and. blue.
of white male bigotry and children learning through
sun headlines and telegraphed lies
cameron proclaims brown denies
as refugees die in front of our eyes
as girls are stoned for falling in love
and men castrated for the forbidden touch

patrol your borders obey their orders
but we welcome hitachi aiwa toshiba and lg
we worship ronaldo nani and theire henri
yet we spit at frightened refugees
i propose that next time a politician or anybody mentions
the words detention and refugee
so casually-
i will ask them to look in my bible-
the dictionary
where they will see that refuge is the word before refugee
and detente comes before detention
so-
ignore their orders destroy all borders;
ignore their orders destroy all borders;





MOMENT OF LIGHT

(“Certum est quia impossibile est”
it is certain because it is impossible)
Tertullian


the world turns
people stand still
stare from suburban windows
looking for a sign

the trees wait
eyeing the chainsaws
splinters and papyrus
guide our todays
as shopping malls and stainedglass windows
bring us to our knees

as subservience is all we feel

religion the new race
followers are easy to replace
so belong or be gone
as blindfolded women with stapledshut eyes
are paraded through villages
to lie beneath stones
and rucksacks scream the word of god
place the veil, the hood, the orange boiler suit
to mark your ground and plead for enemies and infidels
and poppies flower in spilledblood sommed silence
as taleban lords harvest opium crops
to numb the masses
like bloodless crucifixion upon wooden crosses
and bush declares god is on our side
and blair expects significant.....................losses


so.

today
i have become a born again

atheist
bow to a river bank not the parting of the sea
sing to a star not an invisible man in the sky
and

i pray for prayers to be abandoned
mosques desserted, synagogues closed, churches morphed into poundshops
and the congregations will commune with one another
talk with one another laugh with one another


could this be how the shelling stops?
on a tiny piece of earth with no ownership manual
no ritual no prayerline 0800 number no tube of holy water that guarantees eternal life
no jihad no them no us

then they shall all be fucking saved
from a lifetime of waiting
because
the verb is more important than the noun
hey
oh, mighty father?

The Harming

you take pieces daily,
incoherent babble blisters naive eardrums,
not the slap, the hit, the rack of bones,

yet,

but the marching metre of maledicta,
the avalanche of atrophic adverbs
stemming sentences,

judgement delivered by javelin throated jury
serving loneliness,

silent mornings when only the birds sing,
the kitchen windows mist with heat from your mouth,
halatosed hours drip from burnt meat,
plug sockets spark from human static,
catatonia sings like stuck flies
the living room

dies

under the strain of bloated bodies,
starving each other.

no flowers bloom in this drabness
no rings cling to quell this petrified present
saliva drools from varicose lips as you snarl your attrition,
and i i i am nowhere to be seen
i do not live here
i only exist,
head ached, congealed groin

treading water in septic tank
as the people come and go
even jehovah's witnesses get a smile,
friends sip tea, phone calls taken,
then,
the bipolared grin,
the narcissist's indifference
this
this is my existence
thoughts fester like the ready meals i consume to satisfy this hunger.

i,
i have not touched another human, really touched, felt.held.
another,
for years; black out. forget. for death do us part.
a part.
i roam the house, looking for signs of life;
a child's book, an empty cup, frozen photograph.

i collapse in bed,
the dormant stone,
the sleeping grave,
growing growing

push face into cool pillows
do not move
suck black molasses
staple lips to pages
swallow ibuprofen
remind myself
i am alive
i am alive;






In Absentia


i light a candle for the absents
the almost forgotten, the waiting, the worn
a day light for the dark nights
a filament of throat from thought
i light a candle for the absents
the disappeared, the frightened,
the watching, the saturday fathers,
disneyland dads, happy meal patriachs,
contact controlled, access asked
permission prayered
the deadbeat, child support agents
no rights only deepest responsibility
i stare into the flame
see love and hate
unite
in
one
silent flicker
a black and white photograph in a golden frame

but

from the slit wrist
the rose will grow
from the distance
blazes the geography of the soul
like candles, we inhabit the night
absence is not abstention
what feeds the wick?
who starves the oxygen?

and

what man is not made from woman and man?



Keys to your Kingdom
(for Reg Keys)


privilege provides protection
from all the bombs and the hate
and affluence buys you abstention
from the battlefields of the occupied state

an accident of birth or
a victim of geography
the rules are not the same
for soldiers Keys, Tom and wales,prince harry


it is strange how harry's father and grandfather
parade like pariahs on Poppy Day
drenched in medals
splattered in ribbons like stapled cadavars

as,
Tom's father, only wears one,
the face of his murdered son,
where no tomorrows grow, today
as the holes gape like a cenotaph sunday

so, pride is indifferent to suffering
and suffering must be for the chosen
or so we are told
or led to believe in educational history lessons
in a coalition of the willing
it is only those chosen, ripe for the killing

oh wilfred your words
stick in my throat
nearly 90 years ago you wrote
"pro patria mori, the old lie"
you warned us yet no one heard
and your words drifted like ash in the november sky
as now, today, still,
young men are sent to another trench
in another country
for another man's pride
to fight another man's war
but
only if you don't matter
to the country you're fighting for.