Whisper

All it takes is a whisper
In the right ears
At the right time
Echo them in the dusk
When light withdraws
And possibility becomes
Sharper in the darkness
Sigh but a small suggestion
To weave across reason
Slender and fraught
But enduring as steel
A grass blade in a breeze
Whisper peace tonight
Let it murmur around the world

Guilt

Last rays of sunlight
Filter through ancient trees
It is the ending of
Another peaceful day
And it wanes...
On a warm terrace
To the clink of cocktails
Enjoyed with...
Smoked salmon and Parma ham
Bedecking a porcelain plate
And everything is so well
But then I thought
About the global news
So many, so far away
In pain, fear and soon anger
And it reminds me that
Soon...
I shall have more guilt
To carry; for a little while
And so, so, suddenly...
The day dims to black
And is not so perfect anymore
It never was
And...
Not till the ages descend
And bear me away
Shall I be guilty no more.

Harvest

 So the red line is breached
That stripe of western will
Drawn in the desert sand
It is not our line to be sure
Was not done in our name
But that will hardly matter
For whatever we may believe
We do not count in the moment
Not even if...
Nurtured by the sourest seeds
Events bear bitter Syrian fruit
And every morsel of its ill harvest
Becomes poison on all our lips

Venom

Nobody really knows the truth anymore

It weaves and bends across our senses
Like a snake flexing its supple length 
Supplicating coils of half-truths ripple
To mesmerise and calm us into obedience
Stilling reasoning of minds to a torpor
As potent venom spits across thoughts
Without clarity thus folds away dissent
And they make playgrounds of our minds

Wings

So have a care and thus tread most light

The ants do fly upon this August night
A million virgins to air in marriage flight
With wings to shed and a nest to sight
Sated; they fall to earth, to ground alight
If winter is well and any calamity is slight
A new metropolis so begins this very night

Closer

A beech rises into the air

Green pyramid
On earthen plateau
It seeks no solace in the world
It perforce may only grow
Higher than the birds fly
Up to the roof of the world
Headed to or beyond, the stars
Perhaps...
If only they were closer

Softly

Small gasps and a bewilderment

The unconscious embrace of ages
It slates hard the wise to see it
Hurts the wealthy to endure it
But I go now as softly as I came
Like tender wind on sugared glass
The soul makes a hole in finality

Lavender

Watery sunshine queues behind cloud

The August rain holds fast to the ground
Lavender vapour rises like fragrant ghosts
In the garden all is quiet; save for
Wasps hunting in packs in hedgerows
Last winged meat for the royal brood
Lily buds stay closed on the still water
Potatoes hunker in earth on wilted stems
Tomatoes lay green still, on thick stalks
Jewels for the plucking on a later day
Then comes sun through parted cloud
Azure clear sky and high white clouds
No longer now do I feel the autumn
The frost may wait a while longer yet

Concomitant

So tell me then when will the world be just?
It is when the wind takes the scent of intolerance
Sends it high into the sky to shrivel its malice
So reason and trust is again the blood of existence
No more ill rhetoric from mean and low creatures
On the fringe of all that is good in filial humanity
A concomitant hive mind of huddling sycophants
That bends wit and skill in a deadly game of thrones
That they call ethics but the learned call corruption
Ever doth malice rent out its gloating revenge upon us
In long games of dominance we now play out misfortune

Falls

So let wisdom fall down like leaves in autumn
Sink like night winds deadened by new dawns
I cannot stop the fast descent into awakening
This acidic insight reborn sweet and sharp as rain
It covers me in its yielding grace; soft as tears
Makes me believe I will glimpse heaven again

Eye

A small insignificant eye is watching intently from under a shimmered brow

It sees with acuity and quiet alarm how our world is losing its heart and soul now
A laboured breath doth wane and now takes no reward in any sight and sound.
Day shall give way to night and across the water it will scatter the stars found
Unreachable pearls yet making trails of cosmic light to guide our ships of hope home
For though the world closes in about us; the spirit of past deeds, lingers in the gloam
Like ghosts at dusk they haunt night airs; pervade our uneasy dreams for ghoulish cost
The world has changed beyond our ken; the longest day gone and we have lost
And our hearts are left within the past to wonder; how did it all come to this?
And as the thoughts takes shape and fades away, all I remember is your first kiss

Marriage

The ants are in marriage flight
See them dance this August night
Only the queen shall to earth alight
To grow a vast empire of might

Memories

Memories they come and go

Rise and fall like ghosts
Take possession of moments
And are mostly exorcised
But always they are with us
Remind us, teach us, and scare us
But this time of year
Reminds me in memories
Of people who are gone
That I love to remember

Duty of Care

More than 1 million British workers could be employed on zero-hours contracts, new figures released on Monday reveal, suggesting that British business is deploying the controversial employment terms far more widely than previously thought.

The figure – derived from a poll of more than 1,000 employers conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – prompted renewed calls for the government to launch a full inquiry into the use of the contracts, after a week in which a string of organisations – from retail chains to Buckingham Palace – have faced criticism for hiring staff but offering no guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before seeking additional work elsewhere.

What care I from behind my defences that these people suffer

Have I not had the good grace to allow them to get on?

Am I not a responsible employer rewarding of industry?

If they cannot get bread then let them eat coal and dust

What care I in my greed, that my human debt is part unpaid

The world is made and each according to their means survives

And if they do not; then what care I; for I am safe in my ease

I did not make the world nor invent these unjust laws of power

Yet I will use them in extremis; even though my heart says no

For the demon of avarice sits upon my shoulder and whispers

And I; like all others, can but hear only its sweet, honeyed voice

So then I damm these wretches to a lifetime of servitude and fear

For what care I; when the world is so sweetly moneyed for me

Elixir

Transcend those first breaths that ever we drew
For the wall of truth we thought to have built
In such innocent splendour from our open hearts
Now proves less strong that our arrogance made it
Days of wonder and peace shall never again be reborn
For softly comes to us tonight the long, mountain wind
Blowing low to lay a scent of all humanity on our sleep
So that at the breaking light of the new day
We may gaze upon the world with a new mind
For then we can become free as the air itself
To move in unified waves across this occluded outlook
The day is now to come; the old land is ever to be lost
Though we men and women lament this terror
Yet we ride not without our armour into battle
Placated in the elixir of calm and raised high in hope
That the world ends and no new one is allowed to begin
We can finally sleep the long ages and never have need to wake

St Annes by the Sea

 

 

Bower

Shed no tears for the break from night and look to the vault of day rising lofty on a shimmering dawn. Fields of spring gold have now given way to a yellowing fever that sweeps over the world as the harvest approaches. The autumn lays her curse on the summer, and the days withdraw behind all manner of shadowy nook. Such a bower I will find this day, and from within its cool comfort seek solace in an entreaty to the russet queen that the days will continue warm and safe. Though I do ask; why I should raise appeal for an accord when the entire world knows you have no intention to honour it. For the motion of the seasons rocks across the year in timeless grace and both sun and moon must always honour their kin. It is the natural order of things, and yet, I would wish things differently now bones shorten and weaken under the weighty veil of maturity. For the warm realm of the high days is the want of the aged. It is their winter dream and hearthside reverie and even now in the full height of summer, it is passing away again into memory.

Ripples

Ever decreasing ripples

In the global amphitheatre
Brings silence closer
Liberty sighs; takes evaluation
From relics of past freedom
Then it lies in wait
Hoping for a change of days
That ever in the past came
But now they will not appear
It is time to be hushed
Stifle needs to communicate
Live now incommunicado
Lest they come for you
For being true to yourself

Sway

What may hold sway?

When we see only want
And not need in the world
The breath of a guarantee
That we exhaled in earnest
Is but a sigh of regret
That we labour in vain
Always others have more

Exulting

Trees are eager for rain
They rustle in hunger
A thousand cicadas
Exulting the dusk
Leaves thrum the air
Turn the sky to black
And sweet water falls
Upon them temptingly
As honey dripping from comb
Soothes the savage bear
The storm is here
Like a mythical beast
Thunder its call
It tears at the air
With indigo claws
And the trees quail
In fear of fire